The Art of Leading, Coaching, and Influencing Others ™
How would you define The Art of Leading Others?
Studies have shown that you can boil down human behavior into 4 basic categories. People are either driven by a need to be right, to be liked, to be recognized/seen, or to win. Apply that concept as a lens by which you see the individuals at your next meeting and you will see that there is a lot of truth in that statement.
It has also been said that folks will find a way to get their needs met … one way or another. For example, I may not really need a price reduction because I feel that your price for the value you provide is good. And yet my need to win may drive me to push you to lower your price even though I don’t need to … I just need to win more than I need to be fair.
Sometimes folks who are driven by a need to win, will win by making everyone around them lose. Same goes for people who are driven by a need to be right. They are right because they attempt to make everyone around them wrong, even if it means that they damage the relationship.
As a leader, you need to have a basic understanding of people and their needs. Needs are what drive people and knowing the needs of your people is critical to leading, coaching, and influencing, them. Your ability to get buy-in, engagement, and collaboration, within your team is directly related your ability to navigate the minefield of needs and help them see how their needs will be met. This very important when driving change or presenting new ideas.
After studying people and leadership for over 25 years I have concluded the following 3 Truths about Leading, Coaching, and Influencing, Others™ :
- Leadership Rule #1 – Your ability to identify and meet the needs of your individual employee’s will determine your ability to lead them.
- Coaching Rule #1 – As a Coach, your purpose is to help others get clarity on what they truly want and need. Then your job is to help them see how what they are doing or how they are thinking is giving them the exact opposite results of what they want. It is not to figure it out for them!
- Influencing Rule #1 – Your ability to influence others is directly proportionate to your ability to understand the correlation between what they believe and need and the results you need them to achieve. Unless you understand where they are in relationship to where you need them to be your ability to influence them is diminished significantly.
Merriam-Webster’s defines art as the skill acquired by experience, study, or observation.
Leading, Coaching, and Influencing Others™ is an Art. It requires that you learn new skills and have a strong desire to study people. Most importantly, it requires a basic understanding that people are driven by needs. And regardless of the path they take (win, right, liked, or seen) underneath they are all driven by a need to be part of something bigger than themselves and a to have a sense of belonging to a community (organization, company, etc.) that values them for their individual talents, strengths, and contributions.
To learn more about The Art of Leading, Coaching, and Influencing Others™ click here.
