Which Influence Tactics Do You Use?

You may not have paid careful attention to which of the influence tactics in Table 1 you use most often and which you seldom use. If that’s the case, you might be relying too much on a few tactics that do not work as well as others when you’re faced with different people or different situations. Likewise, you may seldom use tactics that might easily give you the results you want. Given that you cannot predict with absolute certainty the situation in which you will call on your influence skills, think of how more experience with a broader set of tactics creates a developmental opportunity for boosting your ability to lead changes, rally support, or simply keep individuals and your team headed in the right direction.

If you’ll notice in Figure 2 (page 16), the influence tactics that research reveals as the most effective for creating commitment lie at the true north position. Chances are that if you set your heading by these marks you will be successful in influencing others.

To assess the influence tactics you currently use, complete the worksheet on pages 17–20. There are two parts to the worksheet. Part 1 helps you identify and measure the most common ways you influence others. In Part 2 you will plot your responses on a graph to show which influence tactics you can develop to be more versatile and become a more effective influencer. Granted, this simple self-assessment is not a rigorous, empirical examination of your use of influence tactics or how influence is practiced in your organization. But if you round out your self-assessment by asking others for their impressions and observations of how you influence, you can use all of that information to get a practical sense of what tactics you can use more often and which ones you can rein in.