Influencing remotely is something that we’re all getting better at.
In one of my coaching session this week we discussed the challenges of managing underperformance remotely. It takes a disproportionate amount of time full stop, and is more challenging at a distance. It’s one thing to influence the poor performer to improve their game, what was especially challenging in this case was managing the fallout of the poor performer’s behaviour with senior stakeholders.
The need to flexibly move between these two contexts and adopt the right influencing style for each took some effort. Yet it’s the kind of effort that pays off for leaders.
Reading the context and selecting the right style is more effective than using your same style in each context. Take my leading influencing quiz below to find out more about your style; how well does it work for you?
What’s your influencing style?
How have remote working arrangements affected your influencing?
Do you feel more influential working remotely? Or is it more challenging to hold your influencing power?
Social psychologists like Amy Cuddy and Peter Glick have researched interpersonal attributes over many decades and the result is pretty much the same: warmth and competence are the two key criteria by which we judge others. On just about everything: they’re core to human interactions, and fundamental to leading. They underpin effective influencing.
How they go together matters for influencing.
Warmth reflects the striving for union and solidarity. Its primary focus is on affiliation and relationship with others. The two ends of this dimension are warmth and coolness. Coolness reflects greater formality in style and less focus on relationship.
Competence is task-focused. Dominance, or agency, the striving for power and mastery, is one end of the dimension. The other is deference, or submission, which entails deferring to the power of others.
The two dimensions form the basis for eight different influencing styles.
You can read more about the styles
here and take the quiz
here.
