Influencing Skills for Leaders

What is the premise of Bodhih’s workshop on Influence skills?

The influence a leader has on his organization or department, is demonstrated by the capacity to make an impact on its character and behaviour. Along with technical knowledge and market understanding, the ability to make a deep effect comes from the trust a leader would command.

Influence in many ways translates to trust. Examine for instance below the two questions.

For leaders what are the five fastest ways to lose trust in their organization?

Act and speak inconsistently, seek personal rather than shared gain, withhold information, lie or half-truths, and be closed-minded.

For leaders what are the five excellent ways to build trust into their teams?

Establish and maintain integrity, communicate values and vision, consider all employees as equal partners, do what’s right regardless of personal risk, focus on shared rather on personal goals.

Pause over the answers and it would become apparent that for a leader to become influential is to practice strategies that directly and indirectly build trust.

Leaders who want to deep dive into the science of Influence and emerge with enduring practices of creating successful influence strategies built on persuasion, circle of influence, trust building, rapport building practices, buy-in processes, assertive behaviour, internal networking, and psychology of influence should consider the sought after Bodhih’s offering: ‘Influencing Skills for Leaders’.

Bodhih’s program on Influencing Skills for Leaders begins with a facilitator led presentation, and case studies that discerns the differences between persuasion, influence and manipulation. Participants understand that persuasion is direct in intent and approach and influence is more indirect in nature. There is a covert element involved in influence (meaning it is deliberate to some degree) however when the element is applied deviously for self-gain, it turns into manipulation. One effective way of understanding the significance of liking, respect and trust is to comprehend the six ways for people to like and respect you.

At Bodhih, Influencing Skills training learners play a game (“sell your date of birth”) to appreciate how one needs to be liked and respected before he or she can be seen as influential. Next, the instructor leads an interesting discussion on how being trustworthy can be achieved by a transparent practice of four everyday habits – being credible, being reliable, being open, and putting others’ interests ahead of your own.

Bodhih’s facilitators are seasoned professionals who create linkages between skills picked up in the workshops and then to apply them in participant’s current roles.

This is done through specific illustrations and analogies and is true for the next session at the customer expectations and customer satisfaction program – value creation through quality.

This is done through specific illustrations and analogies and is true for the next session on ‘how to influence others’ program– four levels rapport building, and steps in achieving buy-in.

Next in the influencing skills and techniques program, through facilitator led case studies, role plays, and group discussions, learners familiarise the four ways of rapport – verbal, non-verbal, vocal and behaviour and also their dominant rapport style. Rapport building is the first step of influence process and sets up the importance of emotional criteria in the subsequent buy-in steps. With the help of another facilitator led class exercise, audience comprehends Influencing strategies and concepts of how to sequence credibility logical arguments and emotions regarding a case or request.

At Bodhih, Influencing Skills for managers is a popular session that is part of a larger Leadership skills training suite.

The session draws richly from the influence studies done by Robert Cialdini, practical research on how trust is built, as also Artistotle’s philosophical thesis on emotions and human character.

The heart of Bodhih’s Influencing Skills and strategies workshop lies in the powerful session that dissects the topic of internal networking and psychology of influence.

Led through a case study, video presentation and analysis, participants gather relevant practices to build internal networking skills by being a supporter, connector and empathic listener. Attitudinal hurdles to internal networking are discussed with real life examples and improvement strategies are documented.

Group discussion and famous Industry study of Robert Cialdini’s 6 principles of persuasion and influence – reciprocity, consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity.

Through work-simulations, participants appreciate how to assess various scenarios of assertive behaviour, conflicting situations, Intense events, Moments of Joy & sadness, Praise & blame etc. so as to transform them into high influence-gain opportunities.

How would you gain from ‘Influencing Skills for Managers’ session at Bodhih?

Bodhih customizes its Influencing skills program along the ADDIE model. Workshop experiences are analysed, designed, developed and delivered that are solution focused and include a range of blended training pedagogy such as role plays, group exercises, self-assessment tools, management games, individual activities, videos, case studies, facilitation, discussions and more.

In addition to the ADDIE model, the Influencing skills and techniques for business success workshop takes advantage of the experiential adult-learning process of concrete experience – reflective observation – abstract conceptualization – active experimentation.

The edge in Bodhih’s Influencing Skills and techniques training comes from researched industry learnings, current best practices and academic insights. The workshop takeaways ensure that learnings are grasped and applied at all levels within a company and its individuals. The long-term benefits are to institutionalise Influencing Skills for Leaders by embedding trust and buy-in processes, expanding circles of influencing and practicing internal networking strategies.

What is Bodhih’s promise on ‘Influencing Skills at work’ programs?

Managers across industries and functions and executive level participants who have attended Bodhih’s sessions on Influencing Skills for Leaders talk of the changed individual and team behaviours, namely, using influencing techniques to work through buy-in situations, larger time investments in rapport building and implementing the six techniques.

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