No matter your current position, you can increase and extend the scope of your impact and influence.
According to Sheri L. Dew, “Having influence is not about elevating self, but lifting others.”
Here are five ways to help you become a better influencer.
Know that you are an influencer
Everyone affects everyone. You don’t have to be in a high-level profession to be influential. Every time your life connects with another person, you have an impact. Everything you do—at home, at work, or in your leisure time—impacts the life around you.
Whatever your goals in life are, you can achieve them faster, be more effective, and your contribution can last longer if you learn to grow your impact.
Cultivate integrity and trust.
Integrity allows others to trust you. When you gain trust, people respect your motives instead of distrusting them. Therefore, trust allows you to influence and add value to their lives.
Reach out to others
Influencers nurture others, not to make people dependent on their leadership but to free people to reach their potential. Looking around you, you will find that those around you crave encouragement, recognition, security, and hope. The process of satisfying these basic human needs is called parenting.
You can focus on being impressed and interested
External difficulties rarely overcome men; a lack of self-esteem usually holds them back. Your goal as an influencer is not to make others think better of you. Instead, your job as a leader is to make people feel better about themselves.
Being impressed and interested, something other than impressive and interesting should be the drive. If you constantly listen to others and appreciate them and what they offer, they will likely develop a strong loyalty to you. This will be so even when your authority over them is unofficial or informal.
Look beyond now
Most people only look beyond their own experience when dealing with others. They tend to view events through the prism of their position, background, or circumstances. Your narrow view of life alienates others and makes relationships difficult.
