How to be persuasive and influence without authority

Leadership

Jun 6

Episode 405 | Author: Emilie Aries

One of the biggest challenges leaders face today is influencing without authority.

When you need to inspire action in others, but don’t have any explicit power over them, how do you proceed?

I hear from so many women leaders I work with that one of the biggest challenges inherent in operating in a highly matrixed environment has to do with influencing without authority. If you’ve ever been left wondering, “How on earth do I get this person to do the thing I need them to do, despite not having any authority over them?” then today’s episode is for you!

Two Types of Influence: Push vs. Pull

There are two types of influence that are important to understand. The push vs. pull model of influencing boils down to this:

Push influence requires authority. You tell someone what to do or something bad will happen, like they might face disciplinary action or risk losing their job. Or you might tell someone what to do and offer a reward like some kind of incentive or bonus. This is known in shorthand as the “stick or carrot” concept and relies on external factors of risk or reward.

Now you might think to yourself, “I get it. Stick is bad, carrot is good,” right? But actually, that’s not the case. Both of these kinds of “push” influence strategies are flimsy forms of motivating behavior change because the moment that stick or carrot goes away - the moment you’re not actively applying that pressure on people - the result goes away.

Push influence strategies may be common in the modern workplace, because they’re easy, but the results truly do not last.

Pull influence on the other hand, is a much harder strategy to deploy, but has a more lasting and profound impact. What you’re doing with pull influencing is actually changing how people feel about doing what you want them to do. Great leaders inspire a sense of internal, intrinsic motivation among team members, winning over hearts and minds.

Instead of coercing a behavior out of people, you’re transforming peoples’ minds about the task at hand. You’re getting people to take action because you get them to believe in that action.

If this sounds somewhat vague and confusing, it’s because it is! But this is a leadership skill you can develop - not just some trait you’re inherently born with or without.

Public service campaigns and appealing to peoples’ hearts and minds through emotional and rational appeals can create lasting, more profound habit change.

So let’s break down how you can get someone in the workplace to do something they seem ambivalent about. There are 3 elements I want to illustrate for putting this into practice: making a rational case, making emotional appeals, and lastly, overcoming obstacles.

Make a Rational Case

When competing for people’s limited time, energy, and attention, it’s critical to go into your persuasion attempt with clear objectives. If you’re going to them with a pain point, for instance, turn that pain point into an ask.

For example, if you were to go to your boss - who you don’t have explicit authority over - and say the following, what might happen?

“Boss, I’m cold. The office thermostat is set too low! Who is setting the temperature in here?”

What is likely to change? Are they likely to respond positively to such a complaint? Is it clear what it is you’re asking of them, or is it more subjective and open to interpretation?

Alternatively, what if you were to go into your boss’s office and say the following instead:

“Hey, I’m cold. This office temperature is set too low for me. I could really use a space heater for my desk, and it only costs $30. What do you say?”

That path forward is so much more likely to persuade, especially among busy people who simply do not care about what you’re talking about. Which, let’s be clear - that’s most of us! People are just going about their day, worrying about their own stuff, so when you approach anyone, you’re already likely to be faced with an inherent obstacle: they’re preoccupied with something else!

So lead with your proposed solution when possible, make a rational case, using facts, figures, and stats when available, and come in with a crystal-clear objective.

And then, if you have to continue to make your case, or need to appeal to someone who’s not being persuaded with a rational case alone, it’s time to find the feeling.

Find the Feeling

Depending on who you’re influencing, it’s important to bolster your rational argument with a more emotional argument.

So how do you actually elicit an emotional response in other people? How do you inspire a feeling in someone else?

This is something I talk about in our Speak Up program, because being persuasive verbally and inspiring a feeling in other people is something of an art form. This is more the art part than the science part of being persuasive. There’s almost an element of theatrics here: how do I engineer an environment that elicits an emotion in others?

3 strategies come to mind that can help":

Stories: share a narrative that moves people to act. We humans are wired to experience feeling through storytelling, so sharing a narrative can take your audience on an emotional ride. This is why we love books, movies, and podcasts that share stories with us - it helps us feel with others, not just for others.
Visuals: bring data to life. If you’ve got a set of facts and figures you’re relying upon to make a rational case, try to incorporate visuals whenever possible to show the impact of those numbers. As the saying goes, a picture’s worth a thousand words. So whenever you can bolster your case with visuals - do so!
Props: while sometimes considered tacky, props can be extremely persuasive. In Switch: How to Change When Change Is Hard, authors Chip and Dan Heath share a story about a company worker who was trying to show how absurd it was that their nationwide chain of hardware stores sourced different work gloves for nearly every location, missing out on the potential for major savings if only the leaders could decide on a few options to stock across the country. He wasn’t able to persuade his colleagues to act and rectify the issue until one day when they all walked into a conference room for a meeting to find a giant pile of work gloves stacked on the table. Once executives saw just how many different types of gloves were being sourced, their similar quality, and wildly different pricing, was a decision finally made!

The point here is: sometimes you need a little emotion to get people out of paralysis and into taking the action you need them to take. You can make a rational case all day, everyday, but sometimes you need an emotional appeal that elicits a feeling and gets people into gear.

Remove Obstacles

Whenever you’re trying to be persuasive, prepare for resistance. Have a rational case, have an emotional case, and then, try your best to preempt any resistance you might get. Common resistance in the workplace can look like…

A negative response like, “I disagree.”
A non-response like having your emails ignored.
Or an excuse like, “I don’t have the time, I have too much going on.”

Whatever it might be, it’s best to try and pre-empt the resistance you might run into so you can prepare to overcome it.

And even if you don’t have a bulletproof counter-argument prepared, mentally prepare yourself to co-create a solution with them if need be.

This is especially relevant for leaders, since the only way you can motivate your team to be aligned and headed in the same direction is to make the path forward as smooth and seamless as possible. So remove obstacles, hear them out if people have resistance, and then co-create a solution as best you can.

This is all easier said than done

It’s part art and part science, but this is a critical leadership skill that you absolutely can develop further.

So if you put these tools and tactics into practice, I want to hear from you. Have you been leaning into “push” influence, unknowingly? Or do you work for someone who does? I’d love to hear how things go when trying to pull people towards you by inspiring others to take the actions you need them to take.

And if you want more support to become the best leader you can be, check out Level Up, our 6 month leadership and management accelerator for aspiring and first time women managers.