How to be more influential, no matter your role

Jennifer Abrams wrote this 2017 piece with a short self-assessment and practical strategies for being more influential in a school, whatever your title. The section below the original looks at what research says about teachers who lead without formal authority and adds a few ways to put that into practice.

Influence – the ability to make an impact, to make a difference. Through words and action, influence helps to move our schools and profession forward.  No matter one’s role – regardless of perceived position or authority or title – we can all make an impact. What does influence look like?  What does it sound like?  

Just a few actions that increase your influence. Take this self-assessment

• Do I listen to and try to understand the needs and issues facing those I intend to influence?
• Do I show respect for the feelings of others by listening non-judgmentally to their concerns?
• Do I assert my position without being seen as argumentative?
• Am I open to influence and seen as one who can change his/her mind?
• Am I known as a person who knows the limits of his/her capability and shows humility?
• Am I known as a person who is polite and open to those who disagree with me?
• Am I known as someone who will compromise?
• Do I demonstrate a strong commitment to issues that will make my school successful and act in the organization’s best interest rather than my own?

This isn’t an exhaustive list of influential behaviors nor is this a list of actions all of us do well daily.  It takes continual self-reflection and intentionality, yet these actions, and others, can be taken and can increase your influence.

Three strategies that I can use to be more influential from the onset. These ideas may seem simple, yet for many, are not easy to do:

1. Watch your face – non-verbals are so tricky for some of us who don’t have a ‘poker face.’  Making a face of ‘disgust’ or ‘you cannot be serious’ is an immediate showstopper for anyone who picks up on those ‘vibes,’ and most do.  Do you want to be seen as someone who can listen actively and not immediately make judgments that shut others down?  Then watch your face.
2. Apologize.  When you do something that you didn’t intend to do, but had a negative impact, own it.  Your ability to apologize will go a long way in building your reputation as being a good colleague and will increase your influence.
3. Acknowledge you have changed your mind and tell the person.  Recognizing a new perspective, stating “Fair enough,” or stating, “That makes me look at things differently,” provide those with whom you work a sense that you can be persuaded and are not rigid in your own thinking.  In future conversations, those with whom you work might be more open to also changing their points of view.

What can I do as a person with authority to influence those who work with me (and not coerce them into doing things my way)?

When you are rolling out a new initiative or getting others to move forward with a project, use the action of “Understand the needs and issues facing those I intend to influence,” and be proactive by stating that understanding.  Provide the responses you imagine they will have when you start out.  Offer answers to questions such as, “How will I learn about this?  How will I be trained to do this?  What is the purpose of this?  How is this better than the way we have already been doing it? How will my everyday tasks change so I can also do this?”  Think through the resistance those around you might experience and respond to that resistance with understanding – a humane and influential strategy.

What can I do as a person without authority to influence my administrator?

Those with positions and titles often hear a lot of complaints.  What they really want is someone to not only come to them with a complaint but some proposed solutions they can use.  Offer your solutions as suggestions. For example, “One way this might be addressed could be…,” or “One consideration might be…” and offer ideas that are in the form of suggestions, not directives. Stay away from, “You know what you should do, Boss?”  Colleagues who understand the context and provide ideas for how to fix challenges get heard more often, and are more influential than those who just whine and complain.

Becoming more influential is a day-by-day, action by action process.  It takes communication savvy, an other-focused perspective and a strong commitment to issues that will make one’s school successful. Perhaps the greatest skill is listening. Providing influence isn’t about you. It’s about your ability to see the mission and help guide others towards the common good. So leave your ego at the door. You’ll be more effective, and you may just learn something along the way.  

Other publications include her chapter, “Habits of Mind for the School Savvy Leader” in Art Costa’s and Bena Kallick’s book, Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success, and her contribution to the book, Mentors in the Making: Developing New Leaders for New Teachers published by Teachers College Press.

Influence without authority in schools: what teacher leadership research says

Influence without authority means getting colleagues to consider and adopt an idea when you have no power to require it. In schools this describes most teachers who lead a department project, mentor a new colleague or push for a change in how the school does something. Jennifer Abrams’s article above gives a self-assessment of behaviors that build influence, such as listening, admitting limits and being open to changing one’s mind. Research on teacher leadership gives those behaviors some context.

What a major review found

A 2017 review in the Review of Educational Research by Julianne Wenner and Todd Campbell surveyed the research on teacher leadership since the 2004 review by York-Barr and Duke. Its findings are useful to anyone trying to lead from the classroom. First, teacher leadership is rarely defined in the same way twice, but the studies describe it as work beyond one’s own classroom that supports peers’ professional learning, shapes policy and decisions, and aims at student learning. Second, much of the research is not grounded in clear theory. Third, principals, school structures and norms can either empower teacher leaders or marginalize them. Fourth, very little of the research addresses social justice and equity.

The third finding matters for the “no matter your role” claim. Abrams’s advice is within an individual’s control, but the review reminds readers that a teacher’s influence also depends on the setting. A school where the principal asks for teachers’ ideas and gives them time will respond to influence differently than one where decisions are made without them. A related evidence summary from England’s National Institute of Teaching, on teacher learning communities, points the same way: groups that are teacher-led and built from the bottom up engage people more deeply than imposed ones, and leaders who take part as learners help the work take root.

Putting the behaviors to work

Abrams suggests offering solutions as suggestions, not directives, and understanding the needs of those you hope to influence. The following steps build on those ideas for a teacher who wants a colleague, a team or an administrator to consider a change.

1. Start with the problem the other person has. Before proposing a new routine, ask what is difficult about the current one. A proposal that answers a stated difficulty is easier to hear than one that arrives from outside.
2. Bring a small, testable version. Offering to try a change in one class or one unit for four weeks, and to share the results, asks for less than a schoolwide commitment.
3. Use evidence from your own school. Student work samples, attendance patterns or colleagues’ comments carry weight because they come from the people being asked to act.
4. Say what is in it for students and for the other person’s workload. Abrams’s list of questions people may be asking, about how they will learn and be trained and how daily tasks will change, covers the second part.
5. Credit others publicly. Naming the colleague whose idea you built on makes it easier for the next person to offer one.

For people who do hold authority

The same ideas apply to principals and department heads. Abrams advises stating in advance the questions staff are likely to have when a new initiative is introduced, and answering them. The Wenner and Campbell finding about norms is a reminder that a leader who asks for suggestions and then ignores them teaches staff not to offer any. A principal can test this by tracking, over a term, how many teacher suggestions were adopted, modified, postponed or declined, and telling staff the reasons.

Limits to keep in mind

Influence takes time, and a person with no title may still be turned down. The review’s point about equity is relevant here: teachers from groups that have been less often invited into leadership can face more barriers, and individual advice does not remove them. Schools that want broader teacher leadership can set up clear routes for it, such as paid roles, release time and a place on decision-making committees, instead of leaving it to personality.

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