I’m a bit late to the party but I want to share an interesting article, Influence Without Authority, by Jenka Soderberg from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. She writes about an experience she had role-playing in a class which she didn’t particularly like but which made her reflect on her own experience at a nonprofit. While she helps people daily, she also took time out to work in New Orleans in the post-flooded days of Hurricane Katrina. Here, she reflects on the class exercise as it related to her “office” reality:
Despite my initial misgivings… {the experience} got me re-thinking the interactions I have with one particular co-worker that borders on adversarial. Having empathy with someone trying to exert control within the workplace is a bit more difficult than helping people stranded in a flooded city. But it’s definitely possible. And I think being able to look at any situation from another person’s perspective is always a good tool to have in my toolbox.
Too often I believe we think about leadership and influence in terms of what’s “out there” in public. We consider leadership in our profession, our community, our greater network or society. We forget that sometimes the hardest type of leadership happens every day, in the grind of working with the same people in an office or even at home, in our family environment.
Perhaps it’s hardest to be a leader when you’re tired and worn out on a Friday afternoon. Or early Monday morning. Perhaps that’s where true leaders shine.
Leadership and influence in these types of environments is partly about empathy, as Soderberg points out. It starts with putting one’s self in the shoes of another and rising up. Perhaps we should work hardest on this with the people we see every day.
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