The Art of Influencing Others: What Every Leader Needs to Know

 

Here’s a question worth sitting with: when you last tried to get someone on board with a change, did it work? And if it didn’t, what do you think got in the way?

Most leaders, when they’re being honest, will tell you the answer has less to do with the quality of their idea and more to do with how they went about presenting it. The idea was sound. The logic was clear. And yet: Resistance. Silence. A polite nod followed by absolutely nothing changing.

If that sounds familiar, you’re in good company. Influencing others is one of the most critical leadership skills, and one of the most consistently underdeveloped. The good news is that it is entirely learnable. It just requires understanding a few things that most people get backwards.

 

Start Where They Are, Not Where You Want Them to Be

The most common mistake leaders make when trying to influence change is leading with the solution. You can see clearly what needs to happen, why it matters, and what the upside looks like. So you present it, and the person across the table immediately starts defending the status quo.

Why? Because you skipped a step.

Before anyone will genuinely consider moving, they need to feel understood. They need to know that you’ve seen what they’ve built, that you respect what’s working, and that you’re not asking them to abandon something without good reason.

This isn’t a soft communication tip. It’s how change actually works psychologically.

We call this the Happy-Sad-Happy approach, and it maps directly onto how humans process the idea of doing things differently.

It starts by acknowledging what’s genuinely good about the current situation. It then moves honestly through what isn’t working – the real costs, the risks, the consequences of staying still. And it ends by making the alternative feel worth the effort.

Skip the first stage, and people feel dismissed. Spending too long in the second, and they feel anxious. The skill is in navigating all three with intention.

Ask yourself: when you last made the case for change, did you start by honouring what already existed before raising concerns?

 

The Leadership Transition Nobody Warns You About

There’s a shift that happens as you move up in an organisation, and many leaders miss it entirely until the gap has already opened.

Early in your career, your results largely come from what you do yourself. You’re measured on technical skill, subject matter expertise, and individual output. That’s the foundation.

But at some point (and it often happens faster than expected), the rules change. The results your organisation needs from you are no longer about what you can do alone. They’re about what you can achieve with and through other people.

This is where influence becomes non-negotiable.

It’s not a peripheral skill you’ll get to eventually. It’s the core of what leadership actually is.

A simple but powerful definition of leadership is this: achieving things with and through other people. And you cannot do that if you haven’t developed the ability to move people.

The leaders who stall at this transition are often the most capable individual contributors. They’re talented, they work hard, and they know their area better than anyone. But they continue to rely on those same strengths rather than investing in the influencing, relationship-building, and people-inspiring capabilities that their level of responsibility now demands.

If you’re leading a team and you’re still spending most of your energy on technical work rather than on your people, it’s worth asking what you might be missing.

 

Trust Isn’t a Nice-to-Have – It’s Your Currency

You can be the most articulate, well-prepared communicator in the room and still fail to move anyone if the foundation of trust isn’t there.

Trust is what makes people genuinely listen rather than just wait for you to finish talking. It’s what makes them willing to take a risk based on your direction. And it’s what keeps them committed when things get hard and uncertainty creeps in.

Research consistently shows that people in high-trust environments are dramatically more productive, more engaged, and less burnt out than those in low-trust ones.

The implications for anyone trying to lead change are significant: if you haven’t built trust with the people you’re trying to influence, you’re essentially starting every conversation with a deficit.

Trust breaks down into four components that are worth examining honestly.

• The first is credibility: do people believe you know what you’re talking about?
• The second is reliability: do you do what you say you will?
• The third is intimacy: do people feel genuinely safe with you?
• And the fourth, perhaps the most important, is low self-orientation: do the people around you believe you’re actually acting in their interests, not just your own?

Where leaders often come unstuck is not in credibility or reliability but in that last one. The moment someone senses that your push for change is more about your agenda than their success, trust evaporates. Authenticity isn’t a brand value – it’s a prerequisite for influence.

 

The Skill You’re Probably Undervaluing

Ask most leaders what they need to develop to become more influential, and the answers cluster around communication, presence, and persuasion. Almost nobody says listening.

And yet listening may be the single most powerful influencing tool available to you.

Here’s why. Most resistance to change is not what it appears to be on the surface. When someone pushes back on your idea, what they say is rarely the whole story. The real concern, the fear, the past experience, the unspoken priority,  lives somewhere underneath the stated objection. If you don’t listen carefully enough to get there, you’ll spend all your energy addressing a problem that isn’t actually the problem.

Active listening – not the polite, head-nodding variety, but the kind that involves genuine curiosity, open-ended questions, and a willingness to be moved by what you hea, signals something important to the other person. It tells them they matter. And people who feel genuinely heard are far more open to being influenced.

The act of listening is itself an act of influence.

There’s something else worth paying attention to: silence.

What people don’t say often tells you more than what they do. If you’re only responding to what’s been spoken out loud, you’re working with half the picture.

 

It’s Not Just What You Say – It’s How You Land

Even the right message, delivered with real credibility and backed by genuine trust, can fail to connect if it doesn’t land well with the person receiving it.

Everyone has a characteristic way of operating. Some people are naturally expressive, energetic, high-output communicators. Others are quieter, more reflective, more tuned inward. Neither is better, but when the way you transmit clashes with the way someone else receives, the message gets lost, regardless of its quality.

The practical skill here is what we call flexing, the ability to read another person’s style and adjust how you’re showing up in the conversation. Not abandoning who you are, but adapting the degree of your energy, pace, and approach to create conditions where the other person can genuinely engage with what you’re saying.

Think about someone you find genuinely difficult to influence. Now ask yourself: have you ever adjusted your approach to meet them where they are, or have you always communicated in the way that feels natural to you? Often, that small shift, slowing down, opening up, asking more and saying less, is all it takes.

 

Leading Through Change in a World That Keeps Shifting

The ability to influence matters in ordinary circumstances. In times of disruption, whether we’re talking about AI, restructures, market shifts, or cultural change, disruption is now the norm. It becomes essential.

The leaders who navigate change well are not necessarily the ones with the best answers. They’re the ones who can bring people with them.

• That takes agility: the capacity to frame uncertainty as something worth leaning into rather than something to fear.
• It takes humility: the recognition that your team’s buy-in and contribution matter more than your own certainty.
• And it takes courage: the willingness to make the case for change even when you can’t guarantee the outcome.

Here’s the thing about AI and all the other forces reshaping how we work. The skills it cannot replicate: empathy, judgment, the ability to read a room, and the capacity to inspire. These are exactly the ones that make the difference when you’re trying to move people.

In a world where machines can process data faster than any human, your most powerful asset is your humanity. Use it.

 

The Real Driver

If you want to get better at influencing, start with self-reflection rather than technique. Consider:

• When you’re trying to move someone, do you genuinely acknowledge what’s working before raising what isn’t? Or do you lead straight to the problem?
• Are you investing in the relationship-building and people-inspiring capabilities that your level of leadership now requires, or are you still leaning primarily on what made you successful earlier in your career?
• How much of your influencing attempts are built on a real foundation of trust? Do the people around you experience you as credible, reliable, and genuinely invested in their success?
• How carefully do you listen before you try to move people? Do you understand where resistance actually lives?
• And finally: Are you willing to adapt how you show up to meet people where they are, or do you communicate in the same way regardless of who’s on the other side of the conversation?

Influence is not a personality trait. It’s not something you either have or don’t. It’s a set of learnable, practicable skills and the leaders who invest in developing them are the ones who make things happen. Not by pushing harder, but by connecting better.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s worth a conversation. Get in touch with the Executive Central team today.

 

Take Action

• Start your next change conversation by acknowledging what is already working before raising what needs to change. Resist the urge to lead with the solution.
• Identify one person you are currently struggling to influence and ask yourself honestly: have you ever adjusted your approach to meet them where they are, or have you always communicated in the way that feels natural to you?
• Reflect on the four components of trust: credibility, reliability, intimacy, and low self-orientation. Identify which one most needs your attention in your key relationships right now.
• In your next important conversation, commit to listening more than you speak. Pay attention not just to what is said, but to what is not.
• Consider the balance between how much time you spend on technical work versus investing in your people. If leadership is about achieving things with and through others, does how you spend your time reflect that?