How can influence empower and inspire individuals?
- The concept of influence
- Empowering through influence
- Inspiring through influence
There are people who find the word influence relatively negative since it means that you are exerting an effort to change the mindset of an individual. On the other hand, people who are knowledgeable about it would say is that it is perfect for companies and businesses that are composed of a large number of employees. However, influencing is not only useful in such situations—another purpose that it serves well is inspiring others.
In public speaking training in the Philippines, the concept of influence is taught as a means to inspire individuals to always strive to be better than their current selves, further proving how effective it is as a means to facilitate empowerment.
The Concept of Influence
Before discussing how influence can be used to empower and inspire others, you should first learn the basics of influence itself.
Influence is defined as the force that a person exerts on another individual to bring about a change in a targeted individual. This change can be found in a person’s behavior, attitude, goals, opinions, values, and necessities. When it comes to being a leader, a grasp on how to be influential is essential—this is needed to affect people that are directly under your leadership.
Basically, influence is a requirement for leadership to become evident. Being influential is not just for leaders, however—it can also be used by speakers, role models, and public figures to present their views and hopefully make an impact in the lives of their listeners and followers.
Being influential is something that anyone that wishes to teach, speak, or facilitate change must be—it is indeed one of the most useful traits that can be learned and mastered.
Empowering Through Influence
Influence is an effective tool for empowering people, especially if the aim is for them to achieve significant personal and organizational growth. You can use your influence to share what you know, your experiences, opportunities, and your skills with people who are worth the investment.
Empowerment through influence is mostly seen in the form of a team leader speaking to his teammates, or a manager praising his employees. Empowerment, as it is, is usually found in these types of situations.
In a typical office setting, there are qualifications for someone to be able to empower others. First of all, they should be in a leadership position. Most of the time, employees will almost never feel empowered when the people who are trying to influence them are coworkers at the same level as they are. Secondly, you will be able to empower people when you have a relationship with them that is built upon respect. Lastly, your employees should be very aware that you are fully committed to your work.
When it comes to empowering through influence, the most important thing is that you should have built a foundation of respect between you and the people you are trying to empower.
When done correctly, you will be able to empower your whole team or organization through the simplest speeches or gestures. With influential empowerment, you will be able to facilitate continued growth and improvements all around you.
Inspiring Through Influence
The concept of inspiration has been littered with many vague definitions—however, the most notable and simplest of them is perhaps this: “To inspire is to make someone want to do something; to give someone an idea about what to do or create.” Simply speaking, to inspire is to initiate an idea.
“Inspiration” is not something commonly heard in big corporations or companies, where leader figures are heavily focused on empowering and motivating their employees to complete all their tasks for the day. It can be said that the idea of inspiration isn’t fully effective in traditional office settings where guidelines and routines are the main driving force to the operations—it works best when the general aim is to instigate idea stimulation in other people.
Inspiring people can be done in the smallest of ways—from helping an old person cross the street to protecting a friend from bullies. Some people inspire others through speaking, and they make it their job to ensure that their listeners are guided towards the right path.
Needless to say, influence also plays a big role when it comes to inspiring people. Even with the social nature of human beings, there are still some who find it difficult to make a connection with new people.
Unlike empowerment through influence, inspiring through influence does not need any kind of relationship or foundation to be effective; all you need is the essence of being influential.
Basically speaking, when you aim to inspire people, you give your best efforts to influence their points of view or to help them realize something. In a way, influencing and inspiring people is the same—it is how and why you do it that differentiates them.
Key Takeaway
Influence is a very powerful concept. When you are an influential person, you have the capability to affect how people think as well as what they do. By taking part in public speaking training in the Philippines, you can learn how to use influence to your advantage and effectively empower or inspire the people around you!