If you want to be a true leader of your business or department then you must know how to influence others. To achieve your goals you will need the help and support of others and you can use influence tactics to inspire your team.

The best leaders do not just bark orders at their people. They encourage others and they persuade and inspire them towards the common goal of the business. In order to become a more effective leader, there are 4 skills of influence that you need to master. These skills are:

1. Organizational savvy
2. Promotion of self and the team
3. Building trust
4. Utilizing networks

Let’s take a look at each of these 4 influencer skills in turn:

1. Organizational Savvy

Within every business or organization, there are ways that you get things done. If you look at an organization chart this shows you the formal lines of authority. But those that are organizational savvy know that this is only part of the story.

To be a good leader you have to have this organizational savvy. You need to know how to really get things done and who you need to approach and how to approach them. Without this, you are going to struggle to achieve your organizational goals.

People tend to have their own agendas in organizations. Nobody is saying that this is right but it exists most of the time. You need to identify the main players if you do not know them already and navigate through the politics to get the right people on board.

2. Promotion of Self and the Team

If you think that a self-promotion is a selfish act then you need to change your thinking on this. Leaders that are strong influencers know that when they promote themselves for genuine reasons they can cut through a lot of bureaucracy.

Influential leaders are also aware that using self-promotion in the right way not only helps their career advancement but will also help the people that report to them directly as it provides them with greater visibility. You will also be promoting your team in general so that their ideas and capabilities have more exposure.

You need to use the right tactics to get the best from self-promotion. Create a situation where you have the right audience so that you and your team can shine. You can also form a special team to solve specific problems for the organization.

3. Building Trust

You cannot lead and influence people effectively without trust. Trust goes a long way to gaining cooperation from others. It is much more effective than forcing individuals to comply with your requests. With trust, the people that work for you will do whatever they can to assist in the achievement of your goals. Without it, they will do the minimum to get by.

Building trust is always a balancing act. To deliver extraordinary results you are going to have to push your people beyond their comfort zone. You also need to listen intently to any concerns that they have and do what you can to help them.

4. Utilizing Networks

A good influential leader knows that they can’t do everything alone. So they get involved with existing organizational networks and use these to their advantage. They will not just get involved in any network – they will evaluate how a network can help them achieve their goals first.