In the workplace, you need influence to get things done. Yet there’s a big difference between being influential and being bossy.

No one likes working with bossy people! Here are four tips to boost your influence at work so you are smart, savvy and get things done without hurting relationships.

1. Manage Accountabilities

If you aren’t holding others accountable, including your senior colleagues, you can easily lose steam. You need to tactfully hold everyone accountable for their tasks. Doing so will exemplify your commitment and fortitude, and other employees will look at you with respect.

How to manage accountabilities? There are numerous ways to do that. Use your meetings to inspire your employees to be accountable. If you think that they aren’t taking their responsibilities seriously, remind them of their commitments. Try to reinforce your message using non-threatening ways. Use assertive lines, but not aggressiveness.

Do you need some inspiration? Think of some influential politicians and business leaders and how they use a combination of frankness, cajoling and favor trading to excite colleagues even from the other side of the aisle.

At the end of each meeting ask these two questions:

“Who is going to be accountable for…?”

“What support do you need to make it happen?”

2. Make Valuable Offers

Being a manager or a boss, you would be required to make valuable offers if you want to increase your influence. Reciprocity is amongst the most powerful forces that can be used to influence others. It is in our primitive nature: humans are bound to pay back favours. If you are being good to your employees, they will reciprocate in the same manner. After all, what goes around, comes around.

Each morning, before you go to work ask yourself these two questions:

“Who is my key person of focus for today?”

“How can I contribute to making him/her a stronger leader?”

3. Use Meetings Strategically

There isn’t anything more important for your career than the office meetings. Whatever you say or express is critically scrutinised by the board members. Meetings are also a platform to master your influencing skills. All your abilities—to manage conflict, present ideas adeptly, bringing about consensus and managing accountabilities—all of them are put on display here.

Before you step into any meeting, ask yourself these two questions:

“What is my ideal goal for this meeting?”

“How can I influence my people to step up and contribute more?”

4. Practise Empathetic Honesty

Speaking everything truthfully requires bravery, but it can dramatically put you down too. Employees highly appreciate feedback. To be able to speak the truth reinforces influence, but to do it right needs right intentions. Motivation is the key. If you want to be truly helpful to others, the results of your feedback would generally turn out to be right.

Before you are about to give feedback to your staff, ask yourself these two questions:

“What specifically am I trying to achieve with this feedback?”

“How can I deliver it in a way that brings out the best in this person?”

These are straight-forward but deeply useful tips for being influential at work. I didn’t give you just the typical rah-rah tips. These work. Use them and let me know how things go.

To YOUR success,

Yana

P.S. Do check out my “People Power” website as I share 8 tips you can use to network and connect with high-power people.

_{This post was first published on Yana Fry blog and has been reposted on Executive Lifestyle with the permission of the author.
Edited by Nedda Chaplin
Image credit: lady explaining new strategy to employees from Shutterstock}

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