Impact on people more senior than you
LEADERSHIP FACT
Did you know?
Inspired staff are 125 per cent more productive than satisfied staff.
Source: Gallup/Bain & Company11
Self-assessment
Before reading this chapter, do the following quick self-assessment.
How would you rate your ability to create impact on people who are more senior than you in these areas?
Exploring the stakeholder group: understanding your impact on people more senior than you
People more senior than you can be the person you report to, your CEO or anyone in between. It could also be someone in your organisation that you do not have a direct relationship with but who exists in your matrix. Seniority can also be down to tenure and experience.
These people can have positional power through the role that they have. As such, they can influence your career, by doing something as simple as talking to other senior leaders about who could get the next available job, for example. Typical career progression and succession planning conversations can go something like this:
Christine’s visibility
‘I think Christine can do so much more than she’s currently doing. I saw her drive some really creative conversations in the last team meeting.’
‘I agree. I’ve also been very impressed with her. She jumped in to help out my team recently even though she didn’t have to. Not only was she helpful, she added something we didn’t have by offering a new and different approach to it. She was open and shared a lot with the team. We need that to happen much more around here.’
A number of other leaders around the table chipped in to share how they had experienced something similar. It became clear that Christine had made an impact on this senior team and that, in conversation, they all recognised and agreed she could, and should, take on a bigger role and contribution to the organisation.
What this interaction shows is how your actions and behaviours are noticed by senior leaders, whether you think about it or not. It is up to you to make sure they are aware of you, that you have impacted them effectively. They need to have you on their radar if they are an important stakeholder to you.
Do not get too caught up in thoughts about seniority so much that it affects the way that you behave and therefore makes you appear inauthentic. At the end of the day, they are also just people, and people connect with people. Be yourself, while understanding that you have the ability to influence people who are more senior to you, just as much as you can influence people who work with you (peers) or those who work for you.
In order to have an impact on senior people, you need to ‘put yourself in their shoes’, think in patterns similar to theirs (e.g. more strategically). It is important not only to use more senior thinking patterns but also to behave as if you are at the next level. If you behave in that way, then people will start to see your behaviour and start to see you operating at a more senior level than you are today. You need to ‘behave as if’ you are in the job. Ask yourself: if you were them, how would you behave, what would you do?
Why do you need to influence people more senior than you?
Senior people can influence more people than you can, either formally or informally due to their network and reach. They could help you in the future. They could introduce you to people they know. They could be vocal supporters for you. They can become your walking ‘ambassadors’, doing the work of talking about you to others for you. How many ‘ambassadors’ do you have? They can play an influential role in your career.
This is why you want to think carefully about the impact you currently have and the one you want to have, if not the same.
Imagine that you have a fully booked day where you are going from meeting to meeting. What impact are you taking with you from one meeting to the next? What if you have a disagreement with your boss or a peer in one meeting and now carry the remnants of that into the next meeting? What will that do to your impact? And what if your most important senior stakeholder is in that next meeting? How will they see you? Is that the impression you want to make and will your impact be the most positive and powerful it could be? Will it create the outcome you want?
If you are running from meeting to meeting, it takes you only a minute to stop and take a deep breath and think how do I want to be in this meeting, not just what do I want to do. How you are and how you come across is the biggest part of your impact.
What do more senior people need?
Well, of course, ultimately, they want to see results, tangible business results linked to the vision and strategy. They want to see the links and connections to those results with context too. So ensure that you are making the links. It may seem obvious to you but may not be obvious to them.
They need to see that you are confident, that you can do the job and that you can deliver solutions for them. Senior leaders want to know that you are someone they can delegate to and someone they can trust.
Keeping yourself at a strategic level will keep them engaged and they are more likely to want to hear more from you.
Do not be afraid to share different thoughts, come up with new ideas and be forthcoming with those. Leaders want people to be giving fresh and new perspectives, demonstrating a sense of creativity. Leaders cannot and do not need to have all the answers.
A story of impact: Helmut opens up
Helmut was a very senior leader. He was seen as being bottom-line driven: he was tough and demanding of his people, always showing a very rational and logical side to everyone. The advice in the organisation from people who worked with him was to stay on the topic, not get side tracked, not to get involved in small talk and stay focused on what he wanted and needed. Results, driving the people and the business hard, was on top of his agenda.
This behaviour meant that people working with Helmut were cautious to engage in any personal conversations. They would hold back from talking about the people aspects of the business and would not engage in any personal sharing; talking about the weekend was almost forbidden. They would not share anything openly or necessarily open up about the reality of the business.
Direct reports to Helmut would wait for him to create any form of small talk. When approaching him, they almost waited for permission and would hesitate to see if he would say ‘How are you?’ There was a fear because they did not think that Helmut was interested in any form of opening up.
At a team meeting, where the team started to share a bit more about themselves and did some exercises in getting to know each other, Helmut learnt a lot more about the power of his impact and the power of these personal interventions.
One of Helmut’s team members engaged him in one of his favourite topics, skiing! He became highly animated, talking about his love for skiing, recommending a fantastic Italian skiing resort and many good restaurants, even getting excited about what to order for lunch while out on the slopes. This amazed the team. He became so passionate they almost could not stop him.
After the time the team spent together focusing on getting to know each other and strategically talking about ‘how’ they worked together, the bottom-line results over the coming months improved. Helmut wanted that to continue. Intellectually and logically, Helmut saw the reason to open up more to people and share a little more to allow people also to open up with him. He actually enjoyed those interactions when he allowed himself to and he also saw the impact on the team. He now had the ability to bring that behaviour out in them too.
Learning from this story
The leader has an impact on the team, which, ultimately, impacts the bottom line in terms of the behaviours. The impact of shifting a behaviour had an effect on the people and the business. There was more openness, which created more sharing and allowed for people to talk about what was really happening in the business. By knowing the leader at a more personal level, people felt more able to be open.
There are a number of lessons to learn from this story:
- From the direct report’s perspective, you have an impact and effect by colluding with the behaviour of just being task-focused. People did not feel able to open up and talk freely but, when someone did, they were surprised at how open Helmut became; it was a pleasant surprise. There was a more positive impact here – by being courageous, they could have influenced Helmut and made this happen sooner.
- From the senior leader’s perspective, you always have an impact, either positive or negative, or even neutral. In this example, Helmut was not aware of the effect he was having. It was not his intention to create this environment or to create a culture of not sharing what was really happening but, by being too focused on tasks, he made people feel like they could not talk about anything else. He was having a partially negative impact on them, the team around him, the people that he lead in the organisation as well as his reputation and brand. It was easy to fix, though, and it took a change in behaviour to make the difference.
Solutions and tools
Here are some practical solutions and tools for having a positive impact on people more senior than you.
1. Stakeholder planning
It is important not just to manage your stakeholders but to lead them, so plan your stakeholder approach. You need to practise both stakeholder leadership and management.
Your success at work largely will come down to how well you connect with the relevant people in an effective way. You need to build a network that helps you do your job now and in the future. So really take time to reflect on who your stakeholders are, some may not be obvious, so try and think wider and bigger than your current role. Think about the future and what you want to happen with your career and then think about who could influence that for you.
Put into practice this simple process of mapping out your stakeholders. Have a plan for how to approach them. You will need to understand them, understand what they need and want from you and identify what you need from them.
Take a look at the Stakeholder Map below and mark out your stakeholders. Where do they fit? Put names in the boxes.
Then identify three to five key stakeholders where you need to build better relationships and then complete the plan.
| Identify three to five critical stakeholders with whom you need to build better relationships | Name, role and why is this support so critical? | Support level: red, amber or green | Follow-up commitments/actions |
| [KEY]Red = not supportive; amber = neutral; green = supportive | |||
Stakeholder leadership and management is important for all stakeholders and the steps here can be used for all, but, in this context, we recommend you focus on those more senior than you.
2. Stakeholder influencing
To be able to influence your stakeholders is another powerful step of stakeholder leadership. Like with everything else, some people will find it easy to influence and persuade others and some will need to put more work into it.
To influence at this level, you need to be able to make connections to the strategy and the vision and be able to convey that in a senior way.
Chunk up and down
Communicate with senior leaders by ‘chunking’ information up and down. Keep it concise and ensure you chunk the information up and down as needed. As a general rule, give the big picture with enough detail, but not too much. Be prepared to be flexible and adapt your style in the moment. Some leaders like the high level executive overview (chunking up) and some like the detail and specifics (chunking down). Figure that out and then adapt your style to what they need to give you more impact.
You will create a greater connection with a senior leader if you think about how they want the information not how you prefer to give it to them. Ask yourself: How can I make them really want to hear what I’ve got to say?
Use storytelling
All the way through this book, we are sharing examples of how impact works. This communication technique is simply called story telling. Most people relate more to stories and examples than to mere facts, so it is a great way of effectively engaging people. In stakeholder influencing, using stories is very helpful in getting your message across. So bring your information to life by using a story to illustrate a point. Senior leaders use stories too. Take the information you want to give, then think of an example you can use to make it come alive. You can also research stories to add value to your data.
Research shows that our brains love stories – and stories release oxytocin, a neurochemical responsible for empathy. According to Paul Zak,12 oxytocin makes people more sensitive to social cues, which engages people in helping and supporting others.
Speak up
Sometimes people are fearful of speaking up to people more senior than them. They may be hesitant to share bad news or voice an opinion that is different from that of the senior person. This can be very counterproductive to innovation and great results. Do not just be a yes-sayer – remember that senior leaders depend on information to be able to make the big decisions. They depend on people closer to the business, closer to the customer to keep them in the loop of what is going on. When done in a collaborative, constructive, supportive and well-intended way, you also increase the chances of being heard and making them take on board your information or idea, hence having an impact as someone who dared to a make difference. When done in an effective way, it is a refreshing experience for those senior leaders.
The town hall: smart questions, not smart answers
JR was the new leader. To make an impact and a good first impression, he organised a town hall meeting with all of his new employees to let people know who he was and what he wanted to create for this business.
His team were gathered in front of him in the large auditorium, and he was really looking forward to this. He scanned the room; eager expressions on people’s faces showed that his new team were keen to see what messages he was going to portray. JR took a deep breath and cleared his throat, he was ready to begin.
‘Welcome to my first town hall meeting. I am delighted to be here with you today. I am excited about this business and want to share with you some of my thoughts on how I see this organisation in the future. Let me share with you what is really important to me.’
JR proceeded to talk about how passionate he was about the growth in the business, the opportunities in the global markets that he could see for them and the excitement about the clients and customers. JR was a great communicator and was enjoying the reaction he was getting from the people in the room. Some were nodding, some were smiling and others were watching him intently, waiting for what he was going to say next.
JR had the ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the room and that he was talking only to you. He was charismatic and was clearly very prepared for this meeting. He was really enjoying what he was saying, and you could tell he believed in it. JR was creating excitement and passion in the room. What he was saying was different, very different.
JR slowed down his words and took a look around the room, ready for the final section of his speech.
‘I would like you all to close your eyes.’ People quickly looked at each other. This is strange, they thought, what is he asking?
JR continued, ‘I want you to imagine that it is three years from now. You are walking into the office, you are feeling good about coming to work. You are empowered to make decisions and you know what you are accountable for. You believe in the future and you want to work hard to achieve it. Now, tell me: what does that look like, what can you see, what does it sound like, what can you hear from others and what does it feel like for you? I want to hear your thoughts.’
There was a silence as people looked to each other for permission to speak. One person started and then people started to comment and call out their thoughts.
JR was delighted; he was happy with the way this meeting was going.
In this example, JR is showing great senior leadership qualities; he is a good communicator and a very good listener so he wants to hear from others about what they think and feel. He wants to engage them in what they want when it comes to working in a great environment, the one that he wants to create. He is involving people in thinking ahead. JR does not have all the answers.
The more senior you become, the more you do not need to have all the answers, nor would you be able to, even if you wanted. As a senior person, it is better to have smart questions than smart answers. In this example, JR could have just told them what it would look, feel and sound like in this great environment and culture that he wanted to create but that would not have engaged them in the same way as asking them some questions.
So, the more senior you become, the more you ask smart questions to allow others to learn and grow. If you do this, you will develop others. You also appear more senior. Of course, you have to have answers, but smart questions are sometimes smarter.
Practise your smart questions by adding these to your list:
- Tell me more about …
- In what way … ?
- How can that work … ?
- What else can happen … ?
3. Use organic and reverse mentoring to help
Mentoring is a superb way to connect with people more senior than you and reverse mentoring is a great process to use. This means that you are both learning from each other; you both take on the role of mentor and mentee.
Organic mentoring and reverse mentoring
Organic mentoring is when mentoring happens naturally, that is a person seeks out the guidance and support of someone they would like to have as a mentor. It is organic; it meets the mentee’s specific needs and it is driven by the desire of the mentee and the mentor – they both see the value and benefits of the mentoring relationship. And, when there is that shared desire to make it happen, it goes without saying that the results will follow. Reverse mentoring is simply ensuring that both people are learning from each other so the more senior person is learning as well as the person who is not as senior.
How to make your organic and reverse mentoring process a success
When considering a mentoring process, we recommend taking an approach that comes as close to organic mentoring as possible while, at the same time, providing the structure and support that is needed to make it as easy and effortless for the mentor and mentee to just get on with the mentoring.
An important part of kicking it all off is to have a very clear message and a communication strategy that ensures everyone involved really ‘gets’ the value of it. The communication should then continue throughout the mentoring timeline to help keep the momentum going, encouraging the participants to keep being proactive, looking for the continuous learning opportunities in the conversations with their mentor or mentee.
Another important ingredient is to prepare both mentors and mentees for their roles. This should include the following six-step process:
In addition to this, we have noticed that the benefits for the mentor often are not highlighted enough, hence not getting to the full potential of the mentoring relationship. The mentor should get as much out of the mentoring as the mentee, as you learn a lot when you start sharing your experience and insights and can see it contribute to the mentor and his/her situation. We have found that mentors who start mentoring and realise that they will also go through a learning experience go from strength to strength. Reverse mentoring ensures this happens.
When this is done effectively, they are powerful and creative processes that can fast-forward the learning of all parties involved.
Be your own brand manager – ‘behave as if you are’
Think of yourself as a brand and become your own brand manager. Whether you focus on it or not, you have a brand and a reputation This is really about taking control of your future and the way you are perceived. Your career is not just about a ladder going upwards but more about developing your skills, competencies and behaviours. This can happen by working more with your peers as well as your leaders. It is about how you develop and grow to be relevant in a changing environment. You never know when a peer will become your boss, so it is important to always think of your brand impact!
To raise your profile and brand (self-PR), it is much more effective to work on your behaviours than your task execution. How you act and behave matters greatly. Task execution is the expected minimum; behaviours will be the differentiating factor.
To progress and work on your self-promotion, we recommend practising the art of ‘behaving as if you already are’. This works when done in an authentic way, when you are being true to yourself. If you are not a ‘rah rah’ person, then it will not work if you start shouting about what you are doing in a way that you would not normally do. It must be done in line with your authentic style.
To ‘behave as if you are’, you need to step into the shoes of the more senior person and ask yourself: what would I do and how would I need to behave to be in that position? If you observe people and you can see them ‘behaving as if they are already in the job’ (in an authentic way), it is obvious to others that they are ready and should be considered for the next job.
Here is a list of some behaviours you can use when ‘behaving as if you are already’. Tick a few that are authentic to you, that you can try out.
- Be curious
- Be open-minded
- Be observant
- Be inclusive
- Be determined
- Be honest
- Be positive
- Be brave
- Be empathetic
- Be adaptable
The cross-calibration meeting
Stephen was leading the conversation at the cross-calibration meeting. At this meeting, all the senior leaders sat around a big table with a larger than normal spreadsheet in front of them. They also had a blank flipchart ready to collate their findings. The purpose of this session was to discuss all of their direct reports and discuss the performance along with their peers’ performance to ensure there was consistency. There were always tough conversations at these meetings so there was some tension in the air.
Stephen started by talking about Anna. He was keen to get going.
‘Anna has had a good year this year and I am delighted to say that she has exceeded all of my expectations. I have found her helpful and efficient, she has gone out of her way to be flexible and help other teams as well as delivering on her own work.’
Stephen was amazed at the reaction he got from his peers. Before he had even finished speaking, they were chipping in with comments on how they had found Anna very willing, how she had been solving challenges and problems in their teams too. Anna had been learning new skills by getting involved in tasks outside of her own area. She had been developing relationships with his peers by getting involved and sharing information with them and their teams too. It had all been noticed; she had done it in such a positive and natural way.
Stephen was putting Anna up for promotion. The promotion went through with no questions, it was well supported and there was a lot of positive feedback for her. Stephen could not wait to tell Anna about this great feedback. He wished the next conversation about Samuel was going to be as easy.
This meeting shows how senior leaders have conversations about their teams and share how they are performing. Anna has demonstrated how she is sharing ideas and showing that she is being creative and innovative in demonstrating that by helping others outside of her own area, while still performing. Anna has been good at self-promotion by building and developing good relationships, showing that she wants to constantly grow and develop. Anna has been positive, helped others, learnt new things and not been afraid of not knowing the answer. She has shown a belief in creating a learning culture.
Check in on your self-promotion. How are you doing?
4. Prepare for meetings – what to do, how to be
The more senior you are in an organisation, the more you need to prepare for meetings; that is obvious. What is not so obvious is how much time people prepare for how they are going ‘to be’ in a meeting, not what they are going ‘to do’. Most people will spend around 100 per cent of their preparation time on what they need ‘to do’ in the meeting. They will be thinking about what they want to say and what the slides or communication needs to say and what the messages are.
Becoming more senior and behaving in a more senior way requires us to spend at least 50 per cent of the preparation time on how ‘to be’ in that meeting. Spending more time on these important aspects is key.
Imagine you are preparing to present at a quarterly business review and you are going to give an update on how the business is progressing/or your project or work is performing.
Work through the matrix below to plan for ‘how do I need to be in this meeting?’
| Where shall I sit? Where do I position myself in the room? | Have I socialised some of these results to people in the room already to prepare them? | What else is on the agenda that I should know about? |
| Where shall I present from? | What frame of mind do I need to be in? | How do I position my story so that it is taken in? |
| Who will be in the room? | What do I want them to experience? | How shall I talk about the big picture and balance the detail? |
| Have I made the links to the strategy? | How shall I choose to influence the people in the room? | How can I include my peers? How can I ensure everyone is engaged? |
This is not a finite list and you can create more ‘how to be’ reminders for yourself, depending on the meeting. The message is to spend more of your preparation time on how you need to be. Simply increase the time you spend on it to be more than it is now, to increase your positive impact.
Voice of impact
Impact is the feeling and response we create in others.
Here are some examples linked to this chapter of how an action or behaviour impacts people’s feelings and therefore how they respond at work. This is how impact sounds and feels. They clearly show that what we do has consequences, good or bad. This gives us a greater understanding that we have the ability to affect our outcomes every moment of every day. This is a big responsibility and, as a leader, it is magnified through the wide sphere of influence that comes with a leadership role.
More solutions: the role your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours plays
When wanting to take control over your impact on people more senior than you, you first need to impact yourself.
You can actively replace thoughts and feelings that are counterproductive to positive impact.
It is estimated13 that a person experiences up to as many as 70,000 thoughts per day.
Many of those thoughts are habits that affect a person’s mindset or outlook and, therefore, the impact they have on the world around them. It starts from within.
On the next page are some examples of negative thoughts, their impact on feelings and how they can be changed to new constructive thoughts to drive more effective impact behaviour.
Summary
If you are wanting to have greater, more targeted impact on people more senior than you, then start to pay more attention to it and be more intentional about creating that impact. Work through the solutions given, remembering to pay attention to your own state of mind and the role it plays. It does not have to be complicated; it is usually paying attention to the small things that gets great results.
This chapter also creates opportunities for you to reflect on and understand the impact you may be having on people more junior than you if you are a senior leader. Often your title goes before you so you have an impact just by walking into a room or attending a call. As a senior leader, you have a responsibility that goes with your position. So be aware of the impact you want to have and make sure it matches the reality.
THE EFFECT ON CULTURE
Culture is created every day, leader by leader. You help create the culture. If you want to have impact on a leader more senior than you, it is simple: behave in a way that influences the culture in a positive way. Be the change you want to see happen. The more you are able to impact also those more senior than you, the more you can influence the culture of the organisation, the way the organisation works. And a workplace where impact flows both up and down tends to be more inclusive and collaborative, which everyone can benefit from.
Self-assessment
After you have implemented the solutions in this chapter, answer these questions again to see the progress you have made.
How would you rate your ability to create impact on people who are more senior than you in these areas?
If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.
Anita Roddick