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Power, Politics and Persuasion - Influencing Others to Achieve Work Goals

Guest post by: Dr. Maynard Brusman

Article Overview: Are you good at influencing others to achieve work goals? Do you think being politically savvy is important in your organization? How is power used where you work? The ability to influence others to get work done is a critical competency today. Inspiring leaders know how to motivate others to achieve business results. They relish engageable moments with their people creating a culture of trust and achievement.

Power, Politics and Persuasion - Influencing Others to Achieve Work Goals

Are you good at influencing others to achieve work goals? Do you think being politically savvy is important in your organization? How is power used where you work?

The ability to influence others to get work done is a critical competency today. Inspiring leaders know how to motivate others to achieve business results. They relish engageable moments with their people creating a culture of caring and achievement.

Power, Politics and Persuasion

Leaders must persuade others to get behind their ideas and plans. Strategies don't implement themselves. And even with a great plan, you can always expect opposition and resistance.

Successful leaders must use power, political savvy and persuasion to bring their ideas to fruition. Many executives, however, are uncomfortable with power or office politics, viewing them as the dark side of workplace behavior. They believe job satisfaction, morale and commitment erode when politics dominate the environment.

But research clearly shows that being politically savvy and building a power base pay off. In "Power Is the Great Motivator," a classic 2003 Harvard Business Review article, leadership consultants David McClelland and David Burnham examined managers' primary motivations and success in achieving results.

Their studies reveal managers are primarily motivated by one of three drives:

1. Affiliation: a fundamental desire to be liked

2. Achievement: the motivation to attain goals and gain personal recognition

3. Power: the desire to influence others

The most effective managers, measured by results, were motivated by power. But there's a difference between managers who crave power for personal advancement and those McClelland and Burnham deem "institutional managers" (those who place the organization's needs over personal goals and being liked).

Institutional managers:

• Are highly organization-minded

• Have a strong work ethic

• Are willing to sacrifice some self-interest for the good of the organization

• Believe in rewarding individuals who work hard toward organizational goals

Are you working in a professional services firm or other organization where executive coaches provide leadership development? Does your organization provide executive coaching to help leaders improve their persuasive powers? Leaders at all levels need to improve their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is "How politically savvy am I?" Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching for leaders who help their employees to improve their ability to influence others.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help you become more politically savvy and influential. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.

Related Articles
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  Behavioural Intelligence, Impact and Influence in Negotiation – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Logical Persuasion
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  Workplace Etiquette: The Political Savvy Individual

Article Tags: business results, how to motivate others, influencing others, persuasion, power politics, work goals



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Re: Drop out Billionaire - I reveived Bill Bartmann's DVD "9 Steps To Achieve Any Goal" as part of my monthly pack from Success University a few months back. It is a great presentation. I've watched it several times but not for a while so I'll view it again in the coming week. He is one of the greats. Like the best success mentors, he speaks with authority because he has come through much tribulation. His program sounds like a great bargain at $100 a year.
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Success Strategies - How to get the results you want now? Success Strategies and Action Steps I have used are: The Power of Choice Where you are at this present moment, is exactly perfect from the choices you have made. If you want to be somewhere else, you have to decide clearly what that is (your goal/outcome) and create action steps to achieve this. The Power of Focus The book "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, is one of my treasures in my Entrepreneur Library. If you focus on what you want versus what you do not want, your conscious and sub-conscious mind will direct attention to this. The movie, What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, explains this in detail about quantum physics and what we create in our lives. The Power of Commitment This is not about commitment to others. The first step is the commitment, your word, you make to yourself. Accountability and responsibility are additional success strategies and ingredients to creating the success, defined by you, that you want. The commitment to others reflects your integrity, your word and the team you work with. Co-workers, clients, yoru family, friends and community. My Success Acronyn in Success Breakthroughs(c) is: S pecific & self-directed U nlimited opportunities & possibilities C reate powerful outcomes C onsistent measureable results E xperience pwoerful transformation S olution and action-oriented S uccessful habits and outcomes Break Through to Powerful LIfestyle & Performance Choices Moira


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