How do you develop your influence as a leader?

A story is told about a Chief Operating Officer of a conglomerate of business who wanted to increase her influence as a leader. He tried to project a swashbuckling personality but it failed. He tried to project an image as Mr. Approachable  but it failed again because it was only for show and superficial.   

Do you want to develop and increase your influence as a leader? Of course, you do! Why? For the simple reason that leadership is influence no more no less. The more that you increase your influence as a leader the more that you become an effective leader. But how do you develop and increase your influence as a leader? 

There are three important foundations that you need to have:

Number one is Humility, humility is construed by many as weakness. However, humility is not weakness, in leadership humility is strength.  The humbler we are the more influential we become. Why is humility a driver of influence? Because it has been proven time and again that we love leaders who are humble. We gravitate towards them not away from them.  Humble leaders are always respected and revered by their followers. Think of someone who is arrogant and egotistical as opposed to someone who is humble. To whom would you want to be identified with? Whose command would you follow? Of course, you want to be identified with the humble one. And you would easily follow the command of the humble superior and not the egotistical one. 

Number two, leaders must always lead from the front. Who are these leaders? These are leaders who leads by example and who walk their talk. They lead the way, show the way    and light the way for their followers. This doesn’t mean that the leader is always in front giving orders. Because it defeats the purpose of leadership which is to empower and develop future leaders.  This means that the intellectual and ideological shadow of the leader is pervading in the entire department or organization that he/she leads.   The leader ensures that his followers know what they are doing even if he is not physically present in the organization.

Leaders who lead from the front are always influential and respected by their subordinates. Think here of a person who always see to it that the organization which he leads can effectively and efficiently function even if he is not physically present.  

Number three, a leader who wants to be influential must be knowledgeable. Knowledge is power and influence, this is something that we can all have. We can have this by reading, listening and studying. Nowadays, there is no excuse for a leader who wants to be influential not to be knowledgeable. Why? Because the internet is there to help him/her to gain knowledge. Unlike before when we solely depend on books for knowledge. Now we have the internet to help us gain knowledge, we can simply search on google. We search it and in a few seconds; it is there to feed our curious minds. Imagine, the influence that we can command from our subordinates. If we can teach them and if we can answer and articulate their questions.       

So there, the three (3) important foundations that you need to have in order to develop your leadership influence. Don’t only try it, use it and live it and see for yourself how influential you will become. – Marino J. Dasmarinas