Neculai Fantanaru

Everything Depends On The Leader

What Exactly Limits The Quality Of Your Influence?

On April 01, 2008
, in
Leadership R2-Premiere by Neculai Fantanaru

Leadership is like a web management application that does not have to crash or generate “system errors” that lead to the interruption of command execution or a calculation process.

“Louis XIV was the protector of the writers Corneille, Moliere, Racine and the musician Lully. He did not place much value on the moral code of the time, having many mistresses. But after the passing of his wife in 1683, he married a pious widow, Mrs. de Maintenon, who encouraged him to devote himself more to religion. Thus, Ludovic began to carry a prayer book and a rosary with him everywhere, and the disasters of the wars and the death of several descendants caused much pain. Absolute monarch, obsessed with grandeur and praised by his courtiers, Louis isolated himself from the common people and at his death in 1715, when his lifeless body was transported to St. Denis, the crowd apostrophized, mockingly.” (Brian Mooney - Great Leaders)

This short account of the life of the famous monarch highlights a single lesson: greatness is not a work based on the added value brought both by the means of production, by human capital. Rather, it’s like a lottery in which you have to be careful who you entrust your data to. For, one day, the player who did not have enough chips to “call”, drew a losing card and thus gave his life.

Well, you can positively influence the way other people perceive you, only if you live up to their spiritual and moral ideals, only if you do not block their attempt to adapt to a new context. It’s all about their attempt to see themselves as part of a whole that does not wear out, and their actions, without which the whole would be interrupted, must lead to a greater involvement and a more serious concern for order, for quality, for fulfilling objectives.

From the moment the leader establishes a connection with the people, and until he manages to establish the exact relationship between their horizon and his own, it can be quite a long time. And he has the most difficult task in this period of transition to a higher level of performance because he has to reconcile his and their interests, facilitating the transmission of his values ​​and ideals, bringing evidence of the effectiveness of his leadership, developing that initiative aimed at highlighting his personality full of courage and wisdom – that personality who must occupy a place of honor in their lives and expand their circle of influence by applying a development strategy that will give the green light to his initiatives.

Leadership: Is your power of influence limited by the situations you have to deal with because of the important position you hold as you try to build the course of events in the order you want?

What limits the quality of your influence? Your power of influence is always limited. Because the situations that you have to deal with through the important position that you occupy, remain, practically, innumerable, not to say infinite. No matter how skillful and brilliant you are in the art of persuasion, you will not be able to print without hesitation, without contesting your decisions – a finality corresponding to your level of expectations, and to build the thread of events in the order you want.

Someone will always oppose you; someone will not accept you as a leader. But the reality is that rejection is part of the art of leadership, being a basic component of your training as a human being. Leadership is dynamic, and it changes depending on the relationship between you and other people. What level of relationship do you have with the other people around you?

What I have generally noticed about leaders is that everyone makes their own set of rules about the relationships they establish. But personal resources and opportunities to maintain them are also inexhaustible. In other words, it is difficult to establish a relationship, it is difficult to be accepted by people, but once you have achieved this, you can easily find many ways to optimize and amplify their development.

Therefore, building an attitude of awareness, an attitude that keeps you in touch with yourself and then with other people, must be part of the goals of all your orientations. It is your merit to be aware that people need you, your resources of knowledge, faith, trust. But they need to rely on themselves after the relationship is established, they need to feel creative, that is, able to cope with whatever situation they are going through. And that is done only through what they are (and could be) in every moment.

But for that, first of all, they need to recognize your position and be willing for you to invest time, patience, and emotional energy in them.

Do all the paths that people around you walk on converge unto you, even if the way you build your attitude toward yourself isn’t directed toward sharing the values ​​of your leadership?

Just as a referee must apply sanctions promptly, in the spirit of true fair play, when the game does not take place within the limits of the rules – so too the leader, in order to increase people’s confidence and ability to accept him as their lead, must to express what is characteristic of them — that is, to apply that decision, that solution, that method of rendering and upholding their ideals (in the spirit of true fair play) and of raising them to a higher level.

Building a correct attitude towards yourself and the relationships you establish is not a privileged goal, but a necessary one. All the paths people are walking on should lead to you. Every way of thinking they form must first be connected to your thinking, meaning, it must pass through the “workshop” of your leadership. Consequently, it is worthwhile to focus on sharing the values ​​of your leadership, suggesting to people the inclination towards the well-defined essence of your leadership.

If you share a vision for your own team, and you notice different reactions, why do you think this is happening? In order to get closer to people, it is necessary for your vision to be unanimously accepted, and thus all their paths will converge towards you. Remember that no one can achieve anything great if they offer very little. No team performs without the leader making sacrifices and without giving his best.

Leadership is represented by leader + people, by people + leader. The quality of leadership depends on the leader and the people he leads. And successful leadership is given by the people and by the leader.

Can you persuade people to live up to their leadership duties by using a personal example that brings to their minds the fabulous story of a vision that really affects history in a practical and concrete way?

Have you ever shared a vision of your own team and seen different reactions? Why do you think this happened? In order to lead people more effectively, you need to approach them morally and emotionally.

Do you first have to obtain people’s permission in order to lead them, or do you put yourself in charge of them? The answer is pretty obvious. It takes time, effort and commitment to develop positive relationships with those around you, you can’t go straight to a high level if you haven’t gone through the other levels of communication. Can you name at least one cause that could hinder the qualitative progress of your leadership?

How do you approach a problem of common interest? Because you will not be able to rise to a higher level, you will not be able to increase your power of influence if people around you abandon you, or if they do not accept your decisions. It is as if you have typing in duplicate an important report, but you miss certain letters – which change the meaning of the sentences and the meaning of the content, which causes the report to be canceled.

1. Do you generate errors of clarity in thought and action? Are people dissatisfied with the way you express your beliefs and the way you display your qualities? Do you block any communication with people, nullifying their point of view?

2. Do you exclude any issues of common interest that could affect you and their development? Do you have difficulty transmitting your own coordinates of action and development?

3. Does the value content of your leadership thwart any attempt to keep the relationship with the people around you intact?

Leadership is based on the interaction between the leader and those who represent him, so it is based on the interdependence and cohesion between them. Leadership can be represented by a circle, in which the rays are given by the interaction between the leader and the group – which must be dominant between the center of the circle, where the leader is located and the perimeter of the circle formed by the group. The personal example, but also the leader’s ability to stimulate the performance of the team through various means are essential in the fight to achieve the proposed goals.

The relationships you develop with the help of influence are like a book that costs less than four books of the same kind, with the only condition that that book be read and reread as often as possible.

The Quality Of Your Influence can be limited by the way you express your beliefs and the way you display your qualities in a context where any step can be wrong. Remember what I wrote above: In order to increase people’s confidence and their ability to accept you as their leader, you need to express what is characteristic of them — that is, you need to apply that decision, that solution, that method to them to reproduce and uphold their ideals (in the spirit of true fair play) and raise them to a higher level.

Alatura-te Comunitatii Neculai Fantanaru
The 63 Greatest Qualities of a Leader
Cele 63 de calităţi ale liderului

Why read this book? Because it is critical to optimizing your performance. Because it reveals the main coordinates after that are build the character and skills of the leaders, highlighting what it is important for them to increase their influence.

Leadership - Magic of Mastery
Atingerea maestrului

The essential characteristic of this book in comparison with others on the market in the same domain is that it describes through examples the ideal competences of a leader. I never claimed that it's easy to become a good leader, but if people will...

The Master Touch
Leadership - Magia măiestriei

For some leaders, "leading" resembles more to a chess game, a game of cleverness and perspicacity; for others it means a game of chance, a game they think they can win every time risking and betting everything on a single card.

Leadership Puzzle
Leadership Puzzle

I wrote this book that conjoins in a simple way personal development with leadership, just like a puzzle, where you have to match all the given pieces in order to recompose the general image.

Performance in Leading
Leadership - Pe înţelesul tuturor

The aim of this book is to offer you information through concrete examples and to show you how to obtain the capacity to make others see things from the same angle as you.

Leadership for Dummies
Leadership - Pe înţelesul tuturor

Without considering it a concord, the book is representing the try of an ordinary man - the author - who through simple words, facts and usual examples instills to the ordinary man courage and optimism in his own quest to be his own master and who knows... maybe even a leader.