The Paragon Hub ISSUE 9

BUSINESS
Leading with Influence
in Business
In today’s interconnected and distracted world,
all of us are seeking motivation, guidance,
reassurance and a promise of a brighter future.
If you choose to lead, you choose to take on
the responsibility of positively influencing those
around you.
JAN - MAR| ISSUE 9 30
Leadership is a choice; it is not a title. When you
choose to be a leader, you effectively choose
to take responsibility for the results in your
businesses and in your life, and you also choose
to take responsibility for the well-being and the
success of the people around you.
5 Key Tips to Lead Effectively
1. Lead Yourself First:
Before you are able to lead others effectively, you
need to be clear on who you are, what you believe
and what you want.
When you have clarity as a leader, you then can
engage and interact with the world around you in an
authentic way, and with integrity. You will do things
the same way day after day which makes you reliable
and predictable and enables the people around you
to trust you.
2. Multiply Energy:
You will quickly realise that the only way to achieve
what you want in life is by being able to positively
multiply the energy of the people around you.
You can only truly influence someone who believes
in you and who is “intrinsically motivated” to do
things. They do things because they want to, not
because they have to. When people are intrinsically
motivated, motivated from within, they are creative,
they are excited, they innovate, they are enthusiastic,
and they don’t get tired.
The opposite of this is “extrinsic motivation”.
This is when people do things because of fear or
because of outside pressure. Any pressure you force
onto people to perform, whether it be your team
members, your spouse or your children, will result
in their performance being short lived. People who
are pressurised to perform generally have a level
of resentment, which means they will do as little as
required to get by, unnoticed.
3. Understand People:
Everyone is different. We therefore need to invest
time into understanding the people around us. We
must understand the fears and motivations of people
in our teams and in our families. This will enable
us to become better equipped to interact in a more
abundant way. You must learn what excites people,
and what scares them, what makes them productive
and what makes them hide. We must develop our
own character and awareness so that we interact
positively with the different people around.
4. Clarity, Direction and Alignment:
Whenever there is confusion or frustration in teams,
this results in blame, excuses and under-performance,
the opposite of what is required to achieve success.
Work with your team to create clarity. Ensure they
understand what is expected of them, what they are
responsible for delivering, how their performance is
measured and how they will be rewarded.
We must then set a clear direction. It is important
to share what the future looks like for the business,
so that people understand the direction that the
business is going in and they can buy-in and commit
to travelling the journey with you. This also guides
them on what to focus on and what not to do.
We must then get alignment, get everyone on the
same page. Understand what the people around
you want, and make sure they know what you, as the
leader, wants. Your job then becomes to align the
objectives of the business with the objectives of the
individuals in your team and show them their path to
success.