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If you’re a leader or someone who works with others, then understanding how you influence others is important.
From the most timid person to the most charismatic individual, the reality is that we all have some sort of influence on those around us. The challenge is to find ways to increase our impact in positive ways so that we can augment the effectiveness of those around us, help to create a more constructive environment and make ourselves more indispensable.
Over the years, I’ve identified four categories that describe how we are influencing those around us.
I was watching an NBA game on TV the other day and after a great dunk by one of the players, I could see his team-mates in the background stand to their feet and cheer him on.
They didn’t dunk the ball, they didn’t pass it to him, some of them may not even get onto the court for that game, but they knew that they still had a role to play.
They had the responsibility to cheer their team-mates on and to encourage them to even greater heights.
Wherever you are and whatever your situation, you have that same responsibility and opportunity.
There will be times in any organisation when someone else is doing great work.
Brain surgeons are allowed (in my opinion at least) to be scumbags. They have my permission (for what it’s worth) to act how they want, say what they want, have a terrible attitude, a haughty sense of entitlement and complain about everything and everyone.
Why?
I have two reasons.
Firstly, they are really hard to replace. It takes a lot of intelligence, discipline, skill and training to become a brain surgeon. I know that I couldn’t become one, and I’m guessing that you couldn’t either. I don’t want to limit your potential, but I’m probably right. Brain surgeons don’t grow on trees, so I’m OK for them to act like scumbags because we don’t get a lot of choice about whether we get the nice brain surgeon or the surly one.
Secondly, brain surgeons save people’s lives. They do pretty amazing and complex work that significantly benefits our society, so they are allowed to balance this out with a terrible attitude.
We don’t have that option.
I’ve written a few times about the importance of having a network of support around you when you’re trying to navigate through life. As social beings, to be completely self-reliant is not how we were designed and we are diminished if we don’t have others contributing to and sharing in our success.
However, I haven’t really defined the kinds of people who should be in your support crew, so that’s what I thought I should do today.
I’ve identified at least four different functions that you should think about having in your life to assist you in your journey.
My wife Karen was reading through a few of my posts earlier today and noticed a couple of typos.
After wishing that I had done a better job in proof-reading myself before pressing publish, I realised that there are times when we all need someone to help us out with a little bit of editing from time to time.
Very few people like to receive constructive criticism, but it is an important component of personal development, so my question today is, who’s your editor?