How to Build Influence Without Becoming Someone You Disrespect

If you feel any sort of resistance when it comes to building influence, that's a sign that you are trying to gain authority through subservience. I asked one simple question, what gives someone authority when they're in the room, and I got over a thousand votes. The top answer was clarity conviction. The second answer was emotional connection. Credentials barely even registered. So you see, we have an agreement, and we agree that authority is not granted by credentials or the role, but it is granted by what you bring into the room. Now, most mainstream advice tells you that building influence is more like a social game, a performance of charisma, extraversion, and even agreeable behavior. Now, if you're someone with deep integrity, that really can feel like physically repulsive because it's asking you to fracture your identity to achieve an outcome. So that's why often trying to build influence can feel like self-betrayal. Today, we're going to replace that view with organizational biomechanics. Two influences not about changing who you are, because you can't build influence by becoming a different person. However, you can build influence by becoming a higher order mechanism of value. You're listening to Career Revisionist, the podcast where ambitious professionals pursue mastery, break through invisible ceilings, and accelerate into leadership, and now to guide you on the journey. Dr. Grace Lee, neuroscientist, executive mentor, and your trusted voice and career leadership. Principle number one is the doctrine of diagnostic sovereignty. Most professionals, when they enter a room with senior leaders, they have an applicant mindset. And this mindset asks the question, well, what do they want to hear? How can I please them? What can I do to serve them? And this is the beginning of subservience, and at the extreme cases is the root of self-disrespect. And this is where you have this psychological subservience, inferiority, because you are trading your authority for their approval. To build influence, shift to what I call a diagnostic sovereignty. Think about it this way. When a doctor enters the room with a patient, the doctor doesn't tell the patient what they want to hear. And the doctor's not seeking for the patient's approval. Instead, they walk into the room and what is the first question the doctor asks? They ask, but seems to be the problem. And then they ask follow-up questions that guide them towards a proper diagnosis. And this is important in medical practice because a prescription without a proper diagnosis is malpractice. So what does this apply? How does it apply to leadership? A leadership, if you're going into the room with executives and your senior higher-ups, and most of the time, professionals go in seeking to be agreeable, which means that they want the person to like them. They want to make a good impression. They want to get on their good side, seeking to be agreeable, usually looks like that. And as a result of that, you are placing yourself in psychological subordinates to them, because now you're going to let go of your authenticity to be more impressive, however they define it. And as a result of that mindset, it's going to cause you to hold back on saying some things that you might want to say. And it's going to cause you to feel like you need to change yourself and adjust your language or adjust the way you are to make that good impression and to be positive in their eyes. And this is really a letting go of authenticity. And therefore, this power that you could have had, you don't manifest it. It doesn't reach its full potential. So, diagnostic certainty, diagnostic sovereignty, what that means is that instead of seeking approval, you seek diagnosis, come at it with a language of diagnosis. And when you do that, instead of sounding like a subservient, you sound like they're peer. Instead of subordinating, instead of supplicating to that, you sound like they're peer. And when you sound like they're peer, you sound like one of them. And as a result of that, you can earn their trust, you can earn their attention. And you also respect yourself and you honor your awareness as well and your intellect because you are seeing problems as the reality that they are instead of needing to let go of your authenticity. Principle number two is the catalytic function of presence. In a biological system, a chemical reaction requires a massive amount of energy to occur. And it wouldn't be possible if it weren't for enzymes. So enzymes come along and they lower the activation energy. And as a result of that, the energy makes the reaction occur faster and cheaper. If you think about it, and the most important thing to note is that when an enzyme comes in into the reaction and makes it happen, the enzyme is not consumed in the process, nor does it change its fundamental structure. It just simply changes its geometry a little bit to make the reaction occur. The wisdom here is to become the organization's enzyme. Instead, position yourself as the enzyme that lowers the activation energy of decision making. For example, when you walk into the room, does your presence deactivate the emotional friction? When you communicate, does your presentation make it more effortless for leaders to say yes? When you speak, do you clarify the complexities so the progress is move and move forward more effortlessly and more easily? And these are examples of lowering activation energy. You see, when you operate as the enzyme, you do not need to change your identity. Remember the example from before? An enzyme still remains the enzyme in any chemical reaction. Instead, what you do is you change your intellectual shape so that you lower the cost of making that decision, just like the enzyme in question. The enzyme remains the enzyme. It just changes its geometry a little bit to make the reaction happen faster and much cheaper. So you're changing the shape of your intellect to offer that catalyst to lower the activation energy. Unless face said, in any organization, influence is an economic phenomenon. Decisions, many decisions are being made every day inside of business that are made in environments with massive amounts of uncertainty. If your presence consistently clarifies what matters and why it matters, you will not need performative tactics. Instead, your influence will be a natural consequence of becoming useful at the judgment level, not at the level of labor or hard work. Principle number three is the economic value of descent. There's a common misperception that you must be a yes person to be able to be get chosen and to be able to advance your career. But here's the thing, if you're always in agreement with your leadership, then it is indicating redundance. Because this face said, if you're always in agreement, total alignment with the leadership, it means one of you is not necessarily in the equation. One of you is not necessary. If both of you are always coming to the same conclusion, if both of you always agree on the same things and what to do next, then there's redundancy. Which one is not necessary? Influence is generated through what I call high fidelity descent. I mean, let's face it, you feel a certain sense of self-disrespect when you hold back on your intelligence just to avoid conflict. From time to time, again, I work with clients who come to work with me because they want to improve their communication. And when I ask them, "Well, what aspect of your communication do you want to work on?" It's really the expression of their ideas, especially in rooms where there are senior leadership, high end stakeholders and upper management. And many times, my clients hesitate in those rooms because they don't know how to position their ideas or they're afraid of conflict or they're afraid of criticism. And from time and again, when I when I conversed with my clients, the story is the pattern is very common where they tell me, "Well, when I speak with my direct reports, there's no problem there. I can express myself and I really know how to communicate with them." But when it's higher ups, that's where I go silent. And when they're silent, they're listening to the conversation unfolding in front of them and they would have wanted to interject or they would have wanted to share an insight, but they didn't. And as a result of that, the next day, they go on to regret it. They go on to, you know, they kick themselves, they feel kind of resentful about and they feel they could, they wish they could turn back the clock, turn back time. And that's the thing. As a highly intellectual, brilliant, professional, you really feel the weight of the performance that you want to use your intellect for good, for productive means, because you want to have a high productive value. And as a result of that, when there are opportunities for you to speak up, and you don't because of fear, because of potential room for conflict and, you know, descent, then, you know, the outcome is that, well, I wish I would have said it. I wish I could have. Should have, would have. So what does it mean to have high fidelity descent? It means to have a high fidelity to your intelligence, to your years of experience, your expertise, such a work so hard to game on one hand, but it also means having a high fidelity to the mission of the enterprise, to your role, to the promises you've made in why you are in as a member of the team of the organization, to all that. And as a result of that, the fidelity is when you are in conversation, is not about winning the debate, right? Because the executive mind, your higher-ups value constructive descent, over blind loyalty. Because imagine, if you could say something that saves the organization from capital, if it saves the organization from having a reputation, if it saves them from their time, But then you become an asset of protection. And that really is your moral obligation. to be able to do that. To bring forward a counter-narrative that protects the organization, it protects the team members involved, it advances moving forward, and it raises the productive value of what you're working towards as a team. That really is your moral obligation. So that means that if you desire to be a great communicator, which I hope you do, this is about developing the skill and the wisdom for high fidelity descent. If this is a skill that you are serious about developing and honing, because you really desire to make a high level contribution to your industry, then I invite you to work with me. Below this video, there is a link where you can book a call to stick to one of my trusted career advisors. And when we talk about influence inside my membership, it really is developing that vernacular to be able to show up, to have constructive descent using high fidelity descent, and to be able to own the frame so that you really can take in the conflict, you really can take in the feedback, you really can carry the conversation with the weight of your words, with the weight of your presence, and the weight of your intelligence. So this is a skill that you want to develop. Click the link below and I look forward to working with you on the inside. Principle number four, the shift from social currency to intellectual gravity. Social currency can be very volatile. I mean, it depends on other people's moods, your own mood, it depends on trends that are happening out there in the social circles, and it depends on politics. So if you try to build a career based on social currency, then it requires that you be quite the lobbyist or the politician. And that's why it can feel quite inauthentic. Instead, pivot to intellectual gravity. Intellectual gravity is when you become the primary source of insight for clarity. And it is your ability to synthesize disparate pieces of information into a very coherent narrative. I mean, when people enter the room, the biggest mistake that I see people make is that they try to be interesting. They want to be interesting to their audiences, they want to be interesting to their higher ups. And when you try to be interesting, it goes right back to the drawing board. There's going to be certain things you might hesitate to say. There's going to be certain things about you, you want to change, you're going to be asking the question from an applicant mindset of, how do I please them? What do they want to hear? And you see, it's right back to that on inauthenticity. So how do you become interesting? Isn't that a catch 22? What I teach my clients is that, well, don't try to be interesting. Instead, be interested. Well, what does that mean? Well, if you are watching this and you've watched many of my videos in the past, chances are, well, you find the interesting. Or at the very least, you find the way I talk about topics very interesting. Well, how do they become interesting? Well, I'm not trying to be interesting to you. But instead, I've been interested in these topics long before you were. And through my interest, I have really awakened my curiosity and my ability to seek and to find the truths. So all I do as I sit in front of the camera, all I do is to speak the truth and the synthesis of the disparate pieces of information into a coherent narrative. And that is a skill that is worthy of developing. If you want intellectual gravity, now this is your intellectual property. For everything that I build that I talk to you on, it's my intellectual property. Nobody has it. Nobody has come put together a narrative quite like I have with disparate pieces of information. And as a result of that, it's very unique. It is one of a kind. But it is a bringer of the truth. And when you hear the truth, there's no way around it. It's the truth. And the truth allows you to connect with it, interact with it, and achieve the outcome you desire to achieve. Because the truth is the wisdom you develop by being insightful and providing insightful clarity. And as a result of that, you have more gravity. So what's gravity? Gravity is a force that attracts other people. Two people who are two objects have gravity. They are attracted to each other. You and the earth, you have gravity. You're attracted to each other. That's why when you throw something up, it falls to the ground. So if you have intellectual gravity by way of your speaking and the way that you share your narrative with deep insights, it attracts people. People come to you. They want to hear more from you. They seek you out just to hear you speak, just to hear your insights, just to hear your take on something. And as a result of that, you don't need to push. You don't need to force. You don't need to have all these performative tactics. Your influence is a result of the intellect that you share. That you worked hard to develop. This will not come easy, but is a worthwhile pursuit if you want to develop intellectual gravity. Principle number five is the principle of value autonomy. Your value is not determined by other people's validation. The moment you seek to have validation from a senior leader, you've outsourced your self-esteem. Instead, operate with what I call a value autonomy. And that means value autonomy means that you decide with the standard of excellence before you start the work. It means that you reflect on your own output and you develop a sense of reflective self-awareness on exactly how you're doing. So when you are acutely aware of how your contribution generated in ROI, you do not need to seek for recognition. Instead, you just report it as a fact. Leaders have a hard time promoting someone who needs constant reassurance. They do promote the person who is a self-sustaining engine of quality. And the requirement for that is to have reflective self-awareness to know exactly and precisely mathematically and strategically how you're really doing. And it's really difficult to resist the need to ask for feedback. It really is. But it's important skill to develop. Because at senior levels, the expectation is, well, don't you know how you're doing? In terms of the grand scheme of things, and you as an individual, you would affect your team. Don't you know how you're doing? And so as a result of that, when you no longer seek for feedback and you no longer seek the validation, you no longer need to perform for others. In fact, you're free to be yourself because your confidence comes from competence instead of applause. Let me give you an analogy. In nature, a healthy ecosystem does not grow by force. It grows by compounding. So for example, within an ecosystem, when the relationships within the individuals, within the creatures involved, when those relationships grow stronger, the whole ecosystem will compounds and it grows stronger. And as a result of that, the system can take on a lot of shocks without collating. Well, your influence works the same way. If your influence just depends on your outward image, then it's really fragile. However, if your influence really functions on compounding value, it becomes resilient. So how do you compound value? Well, you compound value in multiple ways. Number one is how you think. You think at a higher level of altitude and thinking involves how you make decisions, how you act, how you think through problems, how you do cognitive diagnostics. That's all thinking. The second way to a compound value is how-- in how you speak. How you speak when there's a conflict, how you speak in a negotiation, how you speak to get buy-in, how do you speak to your senior leaders, how do you speak when you are having impromptu conversations. So that's the second way to compound value. The third way to compound value is how you show up, and that's your presence. So when you compound value the whole ecosystem, the system inside the company that in which you function, it seeks you. It'll seek you out because the whole system functions better when it does. If you feel any disgust towards playing the game, perhaps you've been confusing counterfeit influence with actual influence itself. You see, true influence is an outcome of physics. If you are someone who is the catalyst that lowers the activation of decision making, if you are someone who brings forth diagnostic sovereignty to bring the truth, if you are someone who has the intellectual gravity to bring that clarity, then influence is pretty much inevitable. To build influence, you do not need to become someone that you disrespect. In fact, start respecting your own intellect enough to deploy it. And stop trying to be liked. Instead, start building the inner architect towards mastery. [MUSIC PLAYING]