Latest / Daily Influence / 655. Leading Through Economic Uncertainty: Beyond Resilience to Strategic Influence

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655. Leading Through Economic Uncertainty: Beyond Resilience to Strategic Influence · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
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• 0:39
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody Brian Smith here with the item team series and your daily influence and today we are going to be talking about something that's in the news a lot that we are facing because of just the world we live in which is leading through economic uncertainty and this is hitting a lot of our clients it has been for a while not just in the last months or even the last year, but it's been a couple of years that we've been dealing with this.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: economic uncertainty and we've danced around it, but I'm really going to try to dive a little bit deeper into it because
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are in a time when there is a lot coming at us.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've recently just been talking about how the labor market is uncertain, how AI is throwing things on its head and there's just so much happening around us.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But economic uncertainty is no longer an occasional disruption.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really an operating environment that we live in right now.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: a shifting consumer competence post at the consumer level, but at the business level too, they're they're not headlines anymore.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're conditions.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: We as leaders must navigate almost daily.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in moments like these resilience alone is enough.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: what separates leaders who simply survive from those who move organizations forward is strategic influence.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: The ability to stabilize people, sharpen, focus, and create clarity when conditions are unclear.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm battle this.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am oftentimes, you know, told that I'm making decisions
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: volatile times, you have to be able to do that.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to touch on that a little bit.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, we're going to talk about how leadership and influence must shift one uncertainty becomes the norm.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look when the environment is unstable and influence becomes our strategy, we often wonder, what does that even mean?
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, in predictable times, plans can carry a lot of weight.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: When we know what's going to happen, we can rely on that structure to support that cadence.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But in unpredictable times, people watch the leaders more than the plan.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: They want to see what leaders are doing.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And not just the top leader, but whatever area of influence you have, you each have your own defined leadership.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it's those people who are being watched and during economic uncertainty leadership influence shifts from execution management to confidence management.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Teams aren't asking what's the plan as much as they're asking, do you see what's happening and can we trust how you're responding?
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Strategic influence means communicating direction without pretending certainty.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: making decisions with incomplete data and explaining the why and showing calm not control it.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look, every person shows calm differently.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your team should understand what calm looks like to you because it doesn't look the same to everybody and it's important in smart communication that people understand how you communicate that calm.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uncertainty doesn't reduce the need
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when pressure rises, leaders often feel compelled to be overly positive.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: They want to lean into being positive to try to dampen down, you know, the fears.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that doesn't always work.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Teams don't need optimism.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: They need stability.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Stability doesn't come from pretending things are positive.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: They come from understanding that they have leaders that are calm and understand what's happening.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: What does this mean may mean reality without dramatizing it, creating short-term clarity inside long-term ambiguity, and giving teams something tangible to control today?
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look, today's one things are happening.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talk a lot about slowing down and being in the present.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can use the present to help you get through these bigger chunks of time that have
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is where resilience meets influence where resilience keeps leaders standing, influence keeps teams moving.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And look, history shows us something that's counterintuitive.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Many of the strongest organizations weren't built in stable times.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were shaped in volatile ones.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So think about that.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't just survive, they reshape themselves, they move themselves from one place to another in a very positive and also responsible way even though there was uncertainty.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: In leaders who turn uncertainty into advantage, reallocate resources instead of freezing them, strengthen culture, bomb competitors retreat, and make smaller.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: faster decisions rather than waiting for perfect information.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that can often times be really difficult.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: When we don't have that perfect piece of data, but we use our experience, our intuition.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: What we know about the world that we live in in our areas of influence and move that forward in a positive responsible way.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Strategic influence during uncertainty isn't about bold predictions.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about intentional positioning.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: While others react
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: influential leaders shape what comes next.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: They do that intentionally.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Economic uncertainty will continue to test all of us leaders, but it also reveals us.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Resilience helps us to endure pressure, strategic influence helps us to guide others through it.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: The leaders who emerge stronger,
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: aren't the ones who avoid uncertainty, they're the ones who learned how to lead within it.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: As always, influence isn't about control, it's about clarity, consistency, and the ability to move people forward.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even when the path isn't completely visible.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's today's daily influence.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you had a good one, I hope you have a great day, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.