Inspiration and Influence

I am a big fan of building influence in the workplace an wrote about Influence this past July with a post called Building Influence. This past week Lisa Haneberg, a professional management, leadership, trainer, coach, and organization development consultant who maintains a blog called Management Craft, posted a great list for anyone looking for help inspiring or influencing others. The post is called "10 Ways to Inspire Others" and is well worth the read.

The Management Craft blog is written with Managers as the primary audience, however everyone can benefit from this list. In my opinion, you build influence by building and maintaining strong relationships, by communicating effectively and by being fair and consistent across all groups in the organization.

Lisa writes that you inspire people by:

1. Be a role model of courage. When our managers demonstrate courage, this will inspire us to do the same and we will respect them all the more.
2. Take a stand. Share your perspective and be open. The most inspiring leaders have a strong vision for how things ought to be.
3. Reject politics! Many of us are sick of politics and would gladly follow and respect leaders who rejected the mucky muck - even if we do not agree with him or her all the time. The wishy washy spin speak is nauseating.
4. Listen more, speak less. Show your employees that you value input and collaboration. This applies to your team members and peers - show them you respect and include your peers.
5. Beat your goals and don't rest until you do. Managers who are OK with mediocre performance (even if they can make the case that it's not their fault) are uninspiring. People want to work for successful leaders.
6. Spend time in their shoes. In fact, swap places with your employees every now and then. Show them you want to understand what their world looks and feel like. Bonus: You will learn tons!
7. Reject over the top perks. OK, so you earned the promotion. Don't flaunt your trappings and take a stand to reject perks that separate you from your team. Think about how you felt when you were in their positions. Try to spread the wealth on great experiences like conferences, trainings, product offerings, and other perks.
8. Represent your employee's needs to senior management and with your peers. Take the initiative to make things better. Wow, that will speak volumes about your intention to serve them and this is very inspiring.
9. Be the best expression of your unique style. We are all different, so don't turn into a corporate clone. That said, be the classiest version of you possible. Like a fine grape varietal, be the fullest expression of you.
10. Be inspired by others. Share your role models and why they inspire you.

This is a great list that highlights how we can continue to grow and get better at what we do whether we are a individual-contributers, project leaders, project managers, managers, directors, VP's, CIO's or CEO's.

I really enjoy and relate to Lisa's blog. She writes with a purpose for helping others and concentrates on strategies that help you grow as a manager. Lisa blog Management Craft has inspired me to think about what I do on a daily basis and helped me to refine my influence.