For the better part of four decades, I've watched the same mistake play out in conference rooms, in one-on-ones, and in the quiet moments after a meeting that didn't go the way anyone hoped.
The mistake is this: treating influence like a personality trait.
The senior leader who speaks up in every meeting assumes they have influence. The one who never does assumes they don't. Both are usually wrong — and both are leaving enormous amounts of leverage on the table.
Influence is a practice, not a possession
Every skill I've seen endure — leadership, sales, writing, parenting — is the same in one respect: the people who get better at it are the ones who treat it as a thing they do, not a thing they are.
Influence is no different. There are recognizable moves. There are predictable failure modes. There are repeatable ways to set up a room, frame a question, and read the answer. None of it requires being the loudest person in the conversation. Most of it requires not being the loudest person in the conversation.
Three things I'd tell my younger self
- Listen for the question behind the position. Almost no one who pushes back is actually pushing back on what you said. They're pushing back on the assumption underneath it. Find that assumption out loud and you've often won the conversation before you've made your case.
- Trade the win for the relationship — sometimes. You can be right and lose the room. You can be wrong and keep it. Pick the long game, unless the short game is genuinely the only one that matters.
- Show your work. People extend more trust to someone who can explain how they got to a position than to someone who just happens to hold it. Especially when the position is uncomfortable.
The good news: this is a practice. You can start today. You can get visibly better in a year. And unlike most practices, the people around you will thank you for it.