Mindsets for being an Influential Manager

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Del curso dictado por Indian School of Business

Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

94 calificaciones

Indian School of Business

Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

94 calificaciones

Curso 5 de 6 en SpecializationBusiness Technology Management

The digital age is dramatically reshaping the rules for organizational success. The new context demands renewal of your capabilities and development of different mindsets. In this course, you’ll learn the different components of emotional intelligence at work. For example, you’ll learn how you can work effectively in teams, build cooperative relationships with your key stakeholders, exercise effective influence, handle difficult conversations, and create energy and enthusiasm to foster meaningful change. Our modules will begin with powerful stories that are illustrative of typical challenges faced by front-line leaders. We’ll analyze the case illustration using the ideas from emotional intelligence theory, and highlight the key lessons that you should take away in terms of mindsets and skills that you should master to distinguish yourself as a leader.

De la lección

Leader as Influencer and Collaborator

Organizations are teams of teams. By definition, a manager gets work done not only through one’s own resources and efforts, but also through others. In other words, you are required to work effectively with people outside your team. These are individuals and groups within the organization and also outside. You have to influence people at different levels and functions, build collaborative relationships wherever possible, negotiate wisely, handle difficult conversations and make decisions in the face of uncertainty and complexity. In this complex arena, formal authority or position power is only a limited resource. You have to influence without authority, and this will require you to draw on your personal power, resources and approaches. You have to develop skills and mindsets for the challenges of managing conflict, handling difficult conversations and carrying out effective negotiations. This module will deal with the topics of influence, conflict management, handling difficult conversations, negotiation and decision making. As a part of this module, we have two interviews – one with a negotiation expert on what it takes to be an effective negotiator, and the second with an industry expert on the topic of complex decision making.

Interview-Effective Negotiation (Prof. Dishan Kamdar)16:35

Mindsets for being an Influential Manager12:59

Influence Tactics13:34

Conflict Management: Constructive and Destructive Responses11:01

Conflict Management Styles12:22

Difficult conversations11:41

Interview-Decision Making in a Complex World (Dr. Edward)10:13

Conoce a los instructores

Ramnarayan Subramaniam
Clinical Professor
Organisational Behaviour

[MUSIC]

Influence is the essence of leadership.

It is central to getting things done.

As a manager, you will have some formal authority.

But authority provides only limited help.

The reality of the organization is that you are accountable for results.

But for achieving those results,

you're dependent on the resources, information and

support provided by several individuals and groups.

Both inside and outside the organization.

You have to manage this dependence.

If your dependence remains unmanaged,

then you'll feel powerless to control your priorities, or

gain necessary cooperation to reach the goalpost.

Without influence, you'll be ineffective.

Your influence has to flow in all directions.

Your Team members, your Colleagues, your Superiors, and

your External Stakeholders, like clients or vendors.

Directives and orders cannot obviously work with your peers,

superiors or clients.

You cannot command your supervisor to approve your proposal

or grant you additional resources.

It is not possible to dictate to your colleagues that they back your project.

They can legitimately say that they have other valid priorities,

stakes and pressures.

They will respond for their reasons and not yours.

You may say that what you ask for is clear and reasonable.

But there's no guarantee for compliance from their side.

Thus, a key challenge for a frontline leader

is to find ways to develop mutual

influence without any reliance on formal authority.

But quite often, the less effective leaders

act in ways that reduce, rather than enhance, their influence.

For instance, they may say,

if only my boss had better sense to understand my problem.

Instead, the influential managers

focus on preparing a pitch that the boss will listen and

respect, with the boss' problems and perspectives in mind.

They think through and

clarify what aspects of their requirements are absolutely critical.

Which aspects are just nice to have?

And which are not important at all.

Such clarity helps them focus on the right priorities in influence attempts.

There are ways of thinking and behaving that characterize influential managers.

Leading authors like Steven Coby, Marshall Goldsmith, Alan Cohen,

and David Bradford have interesting and useful insights on this issue.

We will draw on their ideas to understand the key mindsets and reflexes

that we should consciously imbibe to be influential in our dealings.

We will classify mindsets for

being an influential manager in three broad areas.

One, Personal Stance and Behavior.

Two, Approach to relationships.

And three, Communication.

In the first category of Personal Stance and Behavior,

your mindsets help you build professional and personal credibility.

A frontline leader often relies on rational facts and

explanations to influence people.

This approach works only when the person presenting

the logical arguments is seen as knowledgable.

Influential managers therefore value preparation and

learning to develop reputation as credible experts.

They build strong domain expertise, prepare well for

meetings and make clear presentations.

They select their assignments carefully and make their commitments thoughtfully.

They also keep their promise.

Next, personal credibility flows from patience,

positivity and proactivity.

When you're patient, you're more accepting of the reality.

To enhance your understanding, you're willing to wait and

listen quietly when required.

Positivity prepares your mind and

heart to be cheerful, thoughtful and attentive.

This affirms other people's self-esteem and identity and fosters ownership.

When people feel that you value them and understand the current reality,

they are more inclined to be open to your influence.

And proactivity helps you retain your freedom to choose how

you will respond to other people's all external context.

You are oriented to problem solving approaches,

rather than fight or flight responses.

Now what are the mindsets for approaching relationships?

There are three interrelated approaches here.

Commitment to, one, selling your ideas.

Two, listening and understanding.

And three, caring and cooperation.

Influence is akin to selling your ideas to the decision maker.

There is no pressure on the other party to buy.

It is your responsibility to sell.

You have to convince or educate the decision maker.

If we agree that it is your responsibility to sell,

then you cannot blame the other party for refusing to buy.

That refusal would be your failure.

It is important to remember that people choose to buy a product or

service for their reasons and not yours.

So you cannot be preoccupied with your needs or

the needs of your team or your unit.

You have to relate your communication to the other party's needs or

the larger needs of the organization.

Clearly, influence involves listening, testing a position,

developing a new position that reflects inputs from the other side,

more testing, incorporating new inputs, and then trying again.

In a study, middle managers were required to spend

75% of their time on horizontal relationships

to speed up cross-functional communication.

It was found that less effective managers spent only about

20% time due to Uneasiness with Peers,

given the Differences in Values and Ambiguities across departments.

On the other hand, influential managers

relied on informal conversations to discover commonalities.

They displayed a Sense of trust, Spirit of Cooperation and

pleasant demeanor to colleagues and team members.

They reached out seeking first to understand, only then be understood.

They paid full attention and remained completely present in interactions.

Relationships rest on genuine caring.

Influential managers care about the other party's feelings and problems.

Finally, in the area of communication,

there are three aspects that influential managers pay attention to.

Keeping it simple, making it real and

tangible, and knowing the audience.

Studies have shown that even when influential

managers choose logical arguments, they wrap these

with a blanket of anecdotes or light-hearted humor.

And express them in the language of the person to be influenced.

They present vivid stories to get their message across, and make it real.

Since different people have different agendas,

they invest in understanding the other party, so

that they're able to pitch their message to the concerns of the audience.

To sum up, leadership is influence.

And Influential Managers don't just rely on formal authority.

They have the right approach to personal

behavior relationships and communication.

First, they build personal and professional credibility

through careful preparation, consistent performance track record,

and positive and proactive approach.

Second, the relationships are built on foundation of

personal ownership for listening and understanding, caring and

cooperation and convincing the other side about the merit of their ideas.

And finally, in their communication.

The invest in knowing their audience,

and keep their messages simple, real, and tangible.

In the next video, we will examine how you can build on these mindsets.

And choose the right influence tactics for

different leadership challenges.

[MUSIC]

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