The Four Types Of Influence Tactics

WHEN TO LEAD, WHEN TO FOLLOW?

Leading and following are two sides of the same coin. The definition of leadership often fails to include strategic followership. A skilled leader is able to judge when to relinquish the reins and defer to the leadership of others when necessary. Implicit in this is that an effective leader has a strong sense of their own strengths and weaknesses, and also accepts that leadership is not a “lone-actor” phenomenon and that leadership is not about the leader- it is about the task and the team. It follows that strong leadership requires the leader to understand their followers true strengths and weaknesses and how to leverage their talent.

Going back to the Katz’s Three-Skill Approach (LINK), senior management and

There are three general types of influence tactics (REF Yukl p190):

1. Impression management tactics – these tactics are intended to influence people to like the agent (i.e. ingratiation) or have a favourable evaluation of the agent (e.g. self-promotion). These tactics can be used by leaders to influence followers and vice-versa.

2. Political Tactics – these are used to influence organisational decisions or otherwise gain benefits for an individual or group. Examples include influencing the agenda for a meeting to include your issues, influencing decision maker’s use of criteria that will bias decisions in your favour, selecting decision makers who will promote and defend your interests.

3. Proactive tactics – these tactics have immediate objectives like getting the target person to carry out a new task or change procedures used for a current task. There are many different types of proactive tactics (see table).

Influence outcomes

For influence attempts involving a single target person, there are three distinct outcomes:

1. Commitment – when the target person makes a great effort to carry out the request or implement the decision