Influential Leadership

Influential leadership can help more women excel in leadership roles, but it can be an asset to any leader at all, and it boils down to three key elements:

1. "Persuading up" by establishing a shared vision and values
2. Inspiring commitment by engaging every team member
3. Strategically steering initiatives by collaborating to achieve that shared vision

1. The Art Of Persuasion

Leaders need to share their own values and passion with the person, group, or company they're working to influence. Use empathy to understand what really matters to the other party, then connect with it. Those emotionally grounded connections can help you make a compelling case for your agenda without being seen as too aggressive. If you build off of values your team members all share, your approach won't threaten anyone you're trying to persuade. Instead, they'll be your collaborators in accomplishing something that you both want.

2. Inspiring Commitment

Once you've persuaded others to join your cause, you need to keep them on board in order to execute it. Engendering loyalty and a sense of belonging is key to that, but leaders tend to accomplish it in a few different ways. One way is by providing a forum for everyone to hear about the business and ask questions as a project moves forward. The impression of transparency and collaboration such a forum creates helps sustain the team's common, trust in one another, and its sense of "we-ness."

Leaders don't need to cede control altogether, just apply it strategically and without micromanaging.

Another way for leaders to inspire commitment is to focus on the interpersonal ties between and among team members and themselves. But it's more than just encouraging cooperation.

Leaders who take this approach to commitment need to forge those links through real engagement—by involving everyone in problem-solving goal setting, which has the same end result as the more communal strategy. In both, though, everyone comes away feeling a sense of ownership over what they're trying to achieve together.

3. Strategic Control

Leaders don't need to cede control altogether, just apply it strategically and without micromanaging. That means guiding the initiatives you've delegated to others. Help your teams understand exactly what they need to achieve, and help them decide among the ways they can achieve it. It's a form of delegation where the delegates lead the charge while the leader facilitates and watches their backs. As a leader, you'll maintain control over the agenda while fostering collaboration. But it's still a world away from autocratically making all the decisions yourself—which usually reduces your group's effectiveness.


Influential leaders are showing us the way to lead strongly and effectively without "carrying a big stick." Using inclusive behaviors to keep control, gain buy-in, and advance their agendas, leaders at all levels achieve results using the power of influence. That isn't to say that old-style command and control doesn't still work in some cases. But for most leaders today—and for women in particular—influence is a more effective route to success.