Every year about this time some choose a word for the year. Not New Year’s resolutions, but instead, choosing a single word that becomes the focus for the new year. This word becomes the lens through which we see everything through. Every decision we make, we endeavour to ensure that it aligns with this word. And it’s how I set about creating ‘intentional influence’.
What is Intentional Influence?
Intentional influence is a holistic approach to increasing the self-awareness of leaders so they become better at understanding and improving themselves and their team and inspiring others to follow them.
In practice, this means seeing the big picture — understanding the connections between disparate parts of your team or your community or even the issues that relate to those disparate parts. And most importantly, about being able to persuade expanding groups of people to see those connections and follow where you are leading.
This requires that you let go of the idea of ownership, of feeling the need to take credit and of ‘business-as-usual. Instead, intentional influencers learn to empathise with others and with their unique perspectives and see what they need in order to take action.
Setting Your Intentional Influence
Setting a yearly intentional word helps me to see things in a new light and with a new angle, and it’s one way that I work to create this intentional influence. In 2020 that word for me was ‘prolific’. But 2020 didn’t go at all the way that I expected. In fact, of course, it didn’t go the way that anyone expected.
From Prolific to Patient
What I Learned from The Year of Patience?
Lead With Intentional Influence in 2021
Next Steps
What can you do now so that you have intentional influence in 2021?
- Reflect on the year that was. Consider what went well and what didn’t go so well.
- Consider your goals and vision for the next three to five years. What do you need to focus on to create an influence that would move you toward that vision?
- Then, how would you describe that in one word?
Love to hear your thoughts and wishing you every success in 2021!