Interestingly with at least three generations in any workplace at the moment – influencing skills have become increasingly important. What does this mean for the different generations?
Well at the top of the tree – senior leadership teams – these leaders need to enable and empower the leaders they lead (those people who report to them) to influence the decisions they make. There are two reasons for this – firstly it is the perfect way to teach these emerging leaders about making decisions; and secondly and very importantly it creates speedier buy in to the decisions being made. It is usually these emerging leaders who actually implement the decisions into the business so they really want them to “believe” in the decisions.
Then we have the middle level of managers (emerging leaders) and they need to seek out opportunities to influence decisions and while doing so always remembering that it is the personal brand of the senior leader that is at risk – so get into their shoes and understand the decision from their perspective. Therefore it is critical these young (emerging) leaders build trust with senior leaders. We recommend you use the 6 deposits developed by Dr Stephen Covey – simple and easy to apply.
Then you have the youngest generation who have been educated to challenge the status quo while earning their qualifications. Be very aware the business world is not quite ready for you – so invest time and energy into really understanding the critical profit drivers in the business and come from a place of curiosity to find out more. While doing this earn trust and focus on building a personal brand that allows you to be authentic AND places value on the critical internal relationships you need to rely on when creating career success.
Influencing skills are increasingly critical for all generations within the workplace! Start a conversation with us if you want to know more.
