Page 9 - Leadership Basics 4

A Model for Understanding Influencing Behaviour

Influencing behaviour can also be understood in terms of three dimensions.

Ethical dimension ‐ When people work
together, they often have to act jointly,
even though they would make differing
choices if they acted independently. This
tension
between personal perspectives leads peo‐
ple to try to influence each other. In any
given culture, some influence tactics are
nearly‐niversally regarded as ethical, and
some unethical. What constitutes ethical
Workplace Politics, the political influencing behaviour in schools?
dimension– Influencing can
sometimes be looked at as the
ability to 'finesse', almost sleight
of hand, to manipulate others to
achieve an outcome. The other
person isn't forced into seeing
your view of the world, but is
persuaded, often unconsciously,
or even ‘tricked’ into under‐
standing and accepting it
through the application of
various workplace political
‘tactics’.

Emotional dimension ‐ A leader’s role in influencing others can
be an emotional one—to articulate a message that resonates
with their followers’ emotional reality, with their sense of
purpose— and so to move people in a positive direction.
Emotional influence can be strong, but also unfortunately it can
be used for ill‐conceived (or at least undemocratic) purposes.
While one of the most powerful emotions that influences our
personal lives is ‘love’, one of the most powerful emotions in
influencing teachers at school is the avoidance of humiliation.
No one wants to embarrass themselves if they can help it.