As you begin the New Year and consider the possibility that a new year offers, this is a great opportunity to take some time to reflect on your influence in both your career and your personal life. Reflection can be a powerful tool in guiding your direction and intention for the year. Here are a few aspects to consider and questions to ask yourself:
Your influence grows (or decreases) based on three dimensions: character, expertise, position.
Your character is what others observe about how you govern yourself and what they experience or notice in how you relate to others.
Your expertise is what you know or can do and whether it is useful and beneficial to others.
Your position is the authority and responsibility you have been given and how you steward it.
Which of these three dimensions are most pronounced in your influence? The key question to ask yourself is, for each dimension, are people inspired by your influence or disappointed? For each dimension, most of us have positives and negatives.
Are your positives or negatives louder when it comes to character? How clear, intentional, and focused are you about character? Do you understand how you are perceived by others regarding character? (When there are clear, unaddressed gaps in how you govern yourself or relate to others, you diminish your influence.)
Are your positives or negatives louder when it comes to expertise, which must be earned over and over again? Do you understand the relevance or usefulness of your expertise? Do you use it to serve others and grow your expertise or to feed your egocentricity? (When you demand influence or respect through your expertise, you’re actually diminishing your influence.)
Are your positives or negatives louder when it comes to position influence? (If you view positional leadership as entitlement or forget that it is a “stewardship” that has been entrusted to you for a brief time, you are diminishing my influence.)
The most potent factor in your success in this new year will be how you manage these three dimensions of leadership influence. To grow your influence instead of diminishing it, you will need to see each dimension with clarity, to focus on what matters most, and to measure your results through your own continued reflection and feedback from others.
Competency