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Political Skills for Leaders – 5 essential skills for influencing others · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Early on in my career, I thought political skills were just for business leaders.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I also view political skills as skills employed by those that manipulate, that use others' success as their own and who are looking after themselves and not the wider team.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: As I headed into middle management ranks, I learnt I was wrong, and I learnt the hard way that political skills for leaders are positive skills to have and essential to be more effective in delivering results and value for the company I worked for.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Unsurprisingly, most of us develop political skills by learning from our mistakes, or watching what others do in the workplace and trying to copy them.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember at any point in my career a manager sitting me down and explaining what political skills for leaders are or why they become so important to be effective.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that is what I'm going to outline in this podcast by taking you through five essential skill sets for influencing others and becoming more effective as a manager at work.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25-year management career in corporates and household names through to SMEs.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've also spent a few years as a consultant going into organisations and having to grasp the politics very quickly to be effective, i.e., work out who is aligned with who and why and how the leadership team dynamics work, etc.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And do visit us at enhance.training and take a look at the courses on offer to help you improve your performance.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you like this podcast, please share it with friends and colleagues.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with our first skill group to build political skills for leaders, and that is your personal skills.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of skills that go into personal skills.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to talk about three main ones self-awareness, exerting self-control, and being proactive.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Being self-aware is such an important skill when dealing with others.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know about your emotions and how they're influencing you and how your experience colours your views and ideas, how are you going to manage yourself?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So pay attention to what makes you angry, what excites you, what frustrates you, and learn how to best manage your emotions at work.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing how you are reacting to situations and others gives you the ability to exert self-control over your own reactions.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Before you can effectively influence others, you need to be able to influence yourself and manage yourself.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you experience negative emotions, work on mechanisms that allow you to keep control of your negative emotions and channel them constructively.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And how you do this is very personal.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: What works for one person doesn't work for another, so try out different approaches.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Being proactive is critical to influencing others.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be reactive to what others are doing.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to lead, to formulate what you're wanting to achieve and then proactively influence others to help you achieve your goal or activity.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So decide what you want to achieve first and then work on proactively achieving it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: The second skill group to build political skills for leaders is to build your interpersonal influence.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to cover quickly five key skill sets.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: The first is listening to others.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is such an underrated skill and it's so important for influencing others.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't properly listen to others, they are not going to listen to you.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you really listen to someone, you can find out lots about their interests, their motivations, their concerns, and so on.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: All of this is great information to help you influence them.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Second is thinking before speaking.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Be careful in how you phrase what you say.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Keep in mind how the other person will react to what you say and feel afterwards.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Being diplomatic and considerate goes a long way to building trusting relationships, with a relationship you can influence.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Being honest and sincere in how you deal with others is huge.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Humans are very good at spotting fakes, and nothing destroys trust quicker than trying to be something you are not.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Be open, be honest and be sincere in how you deal with others, and the trust you get back will only increase.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, be interested in other people, be curious about what they think, feel and do.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you are generally interested in them, they will think a lot more positively towards you and your ability to influence will increase.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, make sure that you manage upwards well.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Keep your manager proactively informed about what you're doing and why and ask their input.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: A supportive manager helps you massively, and to get a supportive manager, you must proactively help them.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: The third skill group to build political skills for leaders is to work at reading people and situations.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to cover three key skills that will help you.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The first is seeing the perspective of others.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Put yourself in others' shoes and think about their values, motivations, agendas and goals.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: What do they care about in the workplace and why?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And how can you align their goals with yours?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Next is being aware of the business goals and work to understand the power structures, i.e.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: who influences who and how in the leadership team and the management layers.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Observe the body language and interaction between different members of the staff.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Less than 10% of communication is via the actual words said.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: How the words are said and the body language clues are very important, so consciously work at reading these.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Third, think about how your agenda could cause others to feel threatened.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Work out how you're going to overcome their self-interest or reduce the threat to them.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth skill group to build political skills in management is to work at building alignment and alliances.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Networking is at the heart of this.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: If people don't know you and you don't know them, how can you build alignment and alliances within the organization?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Network with your peers, those above you and those below you.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Get to know them on a personal and a professional level.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can work out who will be easy to work with and who will be more difficult.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: The more your interests are aligned and the better the relationship you have with the individual, the easier you'll find it to influence them.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And always remember you may need to exclude individuals to achieve certain goals if they're going to be blockers to that project or activity.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Take the time to understand each person's goals and agenda.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: The more you understand what they need, the better positioned you'll be to show them that by helping you achieve XYZ goals, the more this will help them achieve their goals and thus create a win-win solution.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great way to create alliances and align goals and effort.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth skill group, to build political skills for leaders, is to work at strategic direction and your wider awareness.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Building influence usually takes time and maintaining it takes effort.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Keep a sense of purpose and direction and being able to articulate this clearly is very important in keeping people on side.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you keep chopping and changing the direction or message, you lose the confidence of others fairly quickly.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: When we have a clear sense of strategic direction and your goals, choosing which battles to fight and when is a lot easier.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Give ground on the battles which will not significantly impact you reaching your goals, and fight hard, you're putting in the favours in the battles which will really matter to you reaching your goals.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget about timing, because timing is important and choosing favourable timing can mean avoiding a battle in the first place.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, keep your awareness of the company and the wider team and your supporters and the detractors.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is really important as things change.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like when you're driving a car, if you want to keep the car on the road, you'll need to steer around corners and hazards and other obstacles.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Be on a constant watch out for hazards and obstacles internally and externally to the company.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there you have five skill sets to work on to build your political skills to help you influence decisions and the outcomes by getting more people aligned to your direction of travel.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Develop your political skills in management so you can become a more effective leader, a person who instigates and implements value-adding change.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you can be a leader regardless of your actual job title and deliver even more value for the company for which you work.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: In turn, this will help speed up your career progress.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So enjoy building your influence within your company and getting more achieved.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And do visit us at enhance.training and take a look at the courses on offer to help you improve your performance.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you like this podcast, please share it with friends and colleagues.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.