Every year about this time some choose a word for the year. Not New Year’s resolutions, but instead, choosing a single word that becomes the focus for the new year. This word becomes the lens through which we see everything through. Every decision we make, we endeavour to ensure that it aligns with this word. And it’s how I set about creating ‘intentional influence’.

What is Intentional Influence?

Intentional influence is a holistic approach to increasing the self-awareness of leaders so they become better at understanding and improving themselves and their team and inspiring others to follow them.

In practice, this means seeing the big picture — understanding the connections between disparate parts of your team or your community or even the issues that relate to those disparate parts. And most importantly, about being able to persuade expanding groups of people to see those connections and follow where you are leading.

This requires that you let go of the idea of ownership, of feeling the need to take credit and of ‘business-as-usual. Instead, intentional influencers learn to empathise with others and with their unique perspectives and see what they need in order to take action.

Setting Your Intentional Influence

Setting a yearly intentional word helps me to see things in a new light and with a new angle, and it’s one way that I work to create this intentional influence. In 2020 that word for me was ‘prolific’. But 2020 didn’t go at all the way that I expected. In fact, of course, it didn’t go the way that anyone expected.

From Prolific to Patient

Rather than spending the year increasing creativity and productivity, expanding keynotes for conferences and elevating products, I spent the months after March practising patience. There were personal implications of course. Mark and I’s wedding was put on hold and we missed our family who lived a distance from us as well.

 And there were further implications in my practice. I had to have patience with 12 months of speaking events, conferences and other gigs being cancelled. Patience with my staff as they were beset with their own COVID issues, such as supporting family job losses, homeschooling and months of lockdown. Patience with technology as we all learned to navigate the new world of Zoom calls and team communication apps. And patience with myself. My own lack of energy and divided focus being a big factor. I even had to have patience with our new puppy Winston as he was potty trained, crate trained and sleep trained.

What I Learned from The Year of Patience?

 The year of patience taught me some powerful lessons about intentional influence. The first is that it’s never just one thing. Intentional influence is first and foremost about empathy and understanding those around you (and even yourself). It’s working to have some understanding of perspectives that may be different from yours and adjusting your actions to take those into account. 

The second thing I learned is that we’re all only human. You can only do so much. Life will do what it will and as a result, you may have to change your goals and adjust your benchmarks. Compassion and flexibility go a long way to helping you influence others around you.

Research shows that leaders that utilise intentional influence are able to envision possibilities and see opportunities that other leaders tend to overlook or undervalue. These possibilities and opportunities then contribute to their leadership development and their achievement of personal and organisational goals.

In other words, those leaders who embrace intentional influence, do more and achieve more for themselves and their companies because they tend to see more of what’s important than their counterparts. And because of these skills, they’re able to be more flexible and more reactive to changing environments (such as the one we experienced in 2020).

Successfully influencing others requires us to release our own point of view. We have to genuinely try to understand another’s perspective – no matter how foreign it is to our own – in order to create a message that will move them to take action. It’s nearly impossible to create influence without this.

Lead With Intentional Influence in 2021

2020 taught us the importance of intentional influence. 2021 will require that as much, if not more. We’re still working out the kinks of this new business world we’re in.  For example, some people may be going back into a physical office. Some may never do so. 

In Australia, things may be going back to normal in many ways, but globally they certainly aren’t. Our ability to intentional influence (to empathise and understand and motivate) is vital for leading in 2021. We simply won’t be the leaders we need to be without it.

Next Steps

What can you do now so that you have intentional influence in 2021?

1. Reflect on the year that was. Consider what went well and what didn’t go so well.

2. Consider your goals and vision for the next three to five years. What do you need to focus on to create an influence that would move you toward that vision?

3. Then, how would you describe that in one word?

Love to hear your thoughts and wishing you every success in 2021!