My process for developing outstanding leaders is built around what I call the Four Pillars of Leadership Success. One of the pillars is communications, which I believe it is the most important of all of the pillars. Leaders must have the ability to get others to do, and they cannot do it without the ability to communicate.
There are a number of critical leadership skills that are dependent on communications. The first that comes to mind is the ability to persuade others. Persuasion is the process of guiding others to action through rational and emotional means. Sometimes leaders confuse persuasion with coercion. Coercion is using force, threats, or trickery to get someone to do something involuntarily.
According to Robert Cialdini in his book, The Psychology of Persuasion, there are six “weapons of influence”.
1.Reciprocity – I have written about the Law of Reciprocity in several articles and in my book, Turning Potential into Action. It is a very powerful law of nature that says that when people are given something of perceived value, they will want to give back in return. The more that leaders are willing to serve and give to others, the more likely they are going to get commitment and performance in return. A leader who demands without giving back will have difficulty persuading, and will have to rely on coercion.
2.Commitment and Consistency – Once people commit to something that they believe right, the more likely they are to honor that commitment. In other words, people will strive to keep their promises.
3.Social Proof – People will do things that they see other people doing. When leaders are trying to implement change, it is essential that they reach a critical mass of acceptance. There is a natural human tendency to conform. Leaders can use this to their advantage in persuading others. Convince a few key people, and the others will follow.
4.Authority – People tend to follow people they perceive as authority figures. Authority has little to do with title and position. I think authority is achieved through a combination of character and competence. Leaders need to have both.
5.Likeability – We are more easily persuaded by people we like than those who we dislike. We all think about a situation where we encountered a salesman that we didn’t like from the start. There is nothing that person could do to sell us. Likeability is a perception. In a famous experiment, three factors were correlated to likeability – the words someone said, the tone of voice that they used, and their body language or non verbal clues. By far the most significant was body language. For leaders to be skilled in persuasion, they must be careful in the non verbal clues that they send. These include such things as smiling, not looking down at a person, and engaging with others as they speak. Words are the least important aspect of likeability.
6.Scarcity – Perceived scarcity will create demand. Telling someone that they can’t have someone is one way to persuade them that they really want it. I recently read an article about Starbucks. After phenomenal growth, Starbucks has struggled the past few years. Their initial success was achieved because of perceived scarcity. They could command the high prices they charged because customers perceived Starbucks as limited and exclusive. Then they increased the number of stores by a factor of 100. All of a sudden scarcity was no longer a factor and the demand decreased. Leaders create scarcity with their followers by emphasizing the things that are unique to the organization. They create a feeling of being part of something special.
Author Resource:
Ryan Scholz works with leaders whose success is dependent on getting commitment and high performance from others. He is author of Turning Potential into Action: Eight Principles for Creating a Highly Engaged Work Place. For more information, visit his web site at http://www.lead-strat-assoc.com
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