Four Useful Questions for Leaders

If you’re reading this, let’s think about how you got here.

I can’t control whether or not you clicked the button that brought you to this piece of writing. But I did attempt to influence you to click through to this post on my site rather than to keep scrolling. My tools of influence are the title, the photo attached to it, and the first few words of the post.

Influence is a continuum. If I were very lightly trying to influence people like you to click, I might simply post a link somewhere you would see it. If I were to turn up the influence dial to the point of creating the illusion of control, I’d start to do things that were out of character. The title would be clickbait. I’d make some audacious claim that you know isn’t true just so you’d click through to validate that you’re right. I’d select a picture with more sex appeal that whatever it is that I have going on. I’d make an impossible promise in the post.

The cost of not trying to influence you to click is that I don’t get any results. Almost no one would read what I write. You wouldn’t get any value from it, and I wouldn’t either.

The cost of trying to control you and make you click is that even if I’m successful, you probably won’t click again next time. You won’t trust me because you were left feeling manipulated by my tactics.

I can control what I write and where I put it for people to see. I can attempt to influence whether or not you click. But I can’t make you do it, and if I try too hard, I’ll probably get weird and break your trust.

This leads us to four endlessly useful questions for leaders.

1.       What can I control?

2.       What can I not control?

3.       What can I reasonably attempt to influence?

4.       How will I conduct myself as I navigate control and influence to maintain my authenticity and my values?

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