48· The Invisible Force: How Women Can Influence For Impact
Podcast show notes
In this episode, we’re talking about how women can use influence to get things done and be noticed for it.
Sometimes, we work hard behind the scenes, but others don’t see it.
I’ll share some simple strategies to help you build stronger connections, improve your visibility, and make sure your efforts are recognised.
No more letting others take credit for your ideas!
It’s time to make your influence stand out and get the recognition you deserve.
Here are the highlights
(02:08) Strategies for Influencing and Being Visible
(04:40) Understanding and Influencing Communication Preferences
(06:11) Building Relationships and Influencing Effectively
(09:38) Focusing on Key Areas
(12:43) Summary
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Ruth
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity or your resilience.
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. In last week's episode my guest Hilary Ross said something that really stuck with me. She said that titles matter for women. When we have a title it makes people hear us more. They pay attention to us when we otherwise might be invisible or glossed over. And men don't experience this necessarily in the same way because they are listened to more and what they say is given attention and it's given gravitas, it’s given importance. So this can make it much harder, you know if we're at a point in our career where we don't have the big title yet, it can make it really challenging for women to maximize our impact, to actually influence decision making and shift things to be where we want them to be, and importantly to be recognized for doing so because I think that's the thing. I think women can be incredibly effective at invisibly getting stuff done. Somebody actually said to me, not so very long ago, that he would employ a 40 or 50 something woman 10 times over than anyone else because they know how to get stuff done and that's true. It is true, but we’re always rewarded for it. We might work blinking hard, we might be really great at getting things done but it's not always visible to other people.
So how do we influence for impact? How do we get the stuff done and be seen to do so? So I've got four things to suggest around this. I keep coming back to this one, this first one, because it is so, so important. And I know you know this but it's worth saying it again. Connection and relationships, getting out there, whether that's on social media, whether it's through introductions and networking that way, whether it's through kind of going to networking events. The bottom line is the better your network, the more opportunities are going to come your way. The more you are seen to be out there, and the more of a profile you will have. So there's something really around that, and in doing that worth remembering what another guest said a while ago, Louise Towler, about being visible, making yourself seen and making yourself memorable, right down to the clothes that you wear, choosing your colors, choosing maybe a lipstick or something that that makes you visibly stick in people's minds.
The second thing really to think about is the gritty bit I guess, is the fundamental influencing skills. There are loads of different ways to influence, I'm not going to go into that here. You may have looked at this on leadership development programs. You can certainly, there's loads of books and information out there about how to influence people, and lots and lots of models that you can use to think about what's effective, what's effective for you, and what's likely to be more effective for the person that you're talking to. But there are some key things that you might want to ask yourself. Thinking about what the outcome is that you want. You know maybe it's in a meeting, and remember what Hillary said last week that coming to terms with the fact that it might not be your point. People might not recognize that it's your point, that it's important somebody else might repeat it and it might be when they repeat it that it gets picked up, but the outcome is the most important thing and trying to remind yourself of that when some somebody nicks it again, nicks your idea or whatever. Thinking, really being clear with yourself about what that outcome is. Also asking, you know, what do I know about how this person likes to communicate or be communicated with? You know, understanding and just having a bit of a think about what their preference is because yes we want to influence, maybe a process or an outcome, a thing that you we want to happen or to change, but we do that by influencing people, by influencing how they are thinking about it and by influencing their response to us. That's really important and that's why I kind of talk a lot about connection because they're more likely to pay attention to us if they feel connected with us and they trust us. But thinking about how they tend to communicate, you know are they super logical and factual? Do they like data? Are they more of a feelingsy kind of a decision maker? You know, do they need to feel a particular way about something in order to be motivated to go in that direction?
What sort of language do they use? You really listen to the words that people use because it tells you a lot. This is something we think about a lot in coaching. You know, is this person thinking about their feelings? Are they a tactile person? Are they visual? Do they prefer their information and to be given things in a visual way? Are they logical? Do they like data? How do they like that to be communicated? So kind of over time building pictures of how people are and how they speak and how they interact with other people or don't, is really, really important. What does that tell me about how they would be best approached, when and where they would be best approached? You know, is this a corridor conversation or a couple of corridor conversations in advance of a meeting? Is a phone call, is an email, is it a presentation? You know, how are you going to go about approaching and influencing this person or group of people?
I quite often use a tool called DiSC with people. It's really similar to Insights. It looks at personal preferences and a lot of that is around kind of communication, and that can be some the sort of thing that thinking about your own preferences but also thinking about other people's is really important.
The other thing to ask yourself in this is do I have the best relationship to actually do this? Am I the person that's best placed? You know, and I don't ever want to be advocating that women step back, but sometimes, you know, we operate as part of teams more often than not. Really thinking about who's best placed, who's going to have the most impact, and I don't mean that from a gender perspective but who's got the relationship, who can really get across the point to this person or these people? Is it me or is it better coming from somebody else? And the thing is as well, if it's not you, really think honestly about why that is and you know, maybe that tells you that there's a bit more work to do around, you know, that connection point and building those relationships. And I totally appreciate that in some instances that's just not going to work. You know, sometimes people just refuse to see us and hear us because they've just got a particular mindset on and there's not a lot we can do about that. But in that instance it's better to acknowledge that than bang your head against a brick wall and potentially damage your reputation and credibility in the process if you keep kind of going at it and it's just not landing. So really kind of thinking in quite a nuanced way about how you're going about influencing and how that's being received is really important.
This next point kind of builds on really what Louise talked about in terms of being memorable, being unignorable, being popular with your clients and with your colleagues. Likability is such a huge thing and we're going to hear a bit more about that from next week's guest. But being likable and being popular with your clients, especially your clients because they're the ones that are paying the money, but also with your colleagues really, really matters in the sense that if you're asking for a pay rise or a promotion, the business can't afford for you to walk. If you have built yourself to a point where you have amazing clients, you've brought them in, you work really well with them, they love you and you go above and beyond for them and you have that loyalty with them, then it sounds a bit harsh but it's really, really difficult for people to ignore you in that scenario, for them to sort of say no, no, you can't have the promotion or no, no, you can't have the pay rise. You have justified that by being really great at what you do. And being clear about what you want to be known for and invest in building a reputation for it. You know that means not only your professional skill set but also your values and your behaviors, the way that you are showing up, being trustworthy, being credible, being able to engage positively with people, get stuff done visibly. So that visibility sort of comes from different points. It can be the point that kind of Louise made about that visual kind of impact so that you are memorable but it can also be about your your professional reputation and values and behaviors and what that says about you. You know, other people notice and if you kind of get a reputation for being somebody that other people want to work with and for, that is usually noticed and don't be shy about pointing it out either, you know, those little things in conversations when you're leading up to that conversation with HR or with your manager about what comes next.
And finally, focus. Be really clear. You know when you're thinking about influencing be really clear about what impact you want to create. And I don't just mean that in very specific scenarios. I also mean it in, you know, when you're thinking about what business areas you want to influence and where are you not getting involved? Where are you staying out of? Obviously as you kind of go up in an organization or a company, your interests widen. You need to understand the context and the environment. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's your thing. You might have opinions and views, of course, you'll certainly have opinions and views about your colleagues and how they are kind of, your peers especially, how they are kind of doing their jobs, I'm sure. But use your trust capital wisely. Really think about what's most important to have an impact on, you know, for your teams, for you and spend that trust capital there rather than straying into other people's areas. That can get quite political, obviously, and you may well have your own views and you may share those views but just be careful around that because if you're seen to sort of step on other people's toes, A, it takes your focus away from what you're supposed to be doing and your energy away from that. And B, you know, potentially that can have an impact on your reputation with your colleagues and your peers so really be careful about where you're stepping into and where you're staying out of and kind of have a think about that would be my advice.
Just in summary, you know, we really need to think about profile and visibility when we're thinking about how we influence. Yes there are lots of things we can do around influencing skills and everything but that sense of being unignorable, being, you know, the person who is just so great at what they do that, you know, they can't refuse the promotion or the pay rise, and make sure that you're kind of really focusing in on the key areas where you want to change things or move things on and make sure that that is actually within your remit.
And today I'd really like to invite you to download, I developed a sort of an audio mini course, sort of thing around power and influence. The link to that's in the show notes if you want to have a listen. It sort of will help just work around some of this thing. It'll give you some prompts to think about, kind of what levers you have at your disposal to pull and push and get things moving in different ways. And sometimes if we feel like we're not really having the impact that we want to have that that influencing isn't working or that it's just not enough then yeah, definitely have a listen to that for some different ideas that might get you a bit unstuck, some different things to try.
If you think you'd benefit from some more work on this book a call with me and let's have a conversation about one to one coaching because some of this stuff is so nuanced around influencing and can be really context specific that, yeah, sort of that real deep one to one work can can help us really move forward at pace and deal with the things that are on our plate now and develop skills for the future. So let me know if you'd like to have a conversation. Take care and I'll see you next week for the next episode of Frustrated and Exhausted.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at Resonate Leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood, I'd absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host Ruth Wood, take care and speak to you soon.
