Secrets to Professional Influence: Transforming Mindsets and Inspiring Action

This transcript has been generated by AI and may contain slight discrepancies from the audio or video recording.

 Anne: [00:00:00] When you hear the term influencer, you might think of that person on TikTok or Instagram who is pretty much persuading you to take that trip to Italy. You might actually picture them as the digital creators promoting products, other lifestyles such as that trip to Italy across. Social media feeds, but today we are talking about a very different kind of influencer, one who operates inside organizations, shaping decisions, driving change, and inspiring action no matter their role or their title.

In today's conversation, we're discussing concepts like how to drive decisions forward, mindset shifts. A step-by-step actionable plan for using data research and internal networking to become a strategic influencer. Here to guide us through all of that conversation. Today is Kisha Wynter. So Kisha, you are an executive coach and power strategist.

With over [00:01:00] 20 years of experience developing and advising leaders in global organizations. Such as General Electric and Citibank. Now you're the founder and CEO of Winter Rich Enterprises where you specialize in helping leaders and high performing professionals close the critical gap between performance and advancement.

Now, you're also the author of the bestselling book, your Power Unleashed. We're so excited to have you on all things work, Kisha.

Kisha Wynter: Thanks, Anne. I am so happy to be here today, and I'm really looking forward to having this important conversation around influence because most people are taught to perform, but very few understand how influence actually works.

Anne: Now to kick things off, Kisha, do you consider yourself an influencer? And if so, you know how? How do you consider yourself that?

Kisha Wynter: Yeah, if you would've asked me. Even 10 years ago, if I considered myself an influencer, I would've said absolutely not because I had this vision in my mind that an [00:02:00] influencer was someone that was an extroverted person and the loudest person in the room.

They were super charismatic. And I don't view myself that way. I am not. And now I recognize that I was always an influencer, even though I had a different style. And the most important thing for an influencer is that they're able. To allow others or inspire others to take action and move forward with an action.

And you don't have to be the loudest person in the room to do that. The only thing you have to do is be able to position whatever it is, like an initiative in an organization that you wanna push across the line. You have to position it in a way that the person that you're speaking to sees the win for them and do some really groundwork before the meeting.

To establish the relationship because if you're trying to influence when you're already in a meeting room, it's already too late.

Anne: So, Kisha, we defined what a strategic influencer is, but walk me through [00:03:00] this. Can you expand on why it can be such an important and valuable skill across any industry?

Kisha Wynter: Because regardless of what industry that you work in, as you begin to ascend within your career. The way you execute has less to do about your own individual ability to get things done, and it relies mostly on your ability to inspire and convince others to take action. And so you are executing through others, you're not getting the work done yourself, and that's why it becomes more and more important as you get promoted.

Anne: So when it comes to being a truly strategic influencer in today's organizations, we know there's a lot of things happening, a lot of things changing today. What key areas do you think professionals should really focus on to make the biggest impact? I know this is a broad question, but maybe we can. Just get into the top part.

Kisha Wynter: Well, I'm gonna break it down a little bit more for you. When I think about strategic [00:04:00] influencer individually, I think of three things that you can do. First of all, this is where most organizations, our leadership dep. Development programs miss the mark, is that they immediately start with powerful communications and tactics and all of that.

But I believe the first step you need to take is understanding your own. How do you own your own power? How you hold your ability to influence others, which means when you show up in a room to speak, are you self silencing? Are you using diminishing language? Because if you use diminishing language, such as I think, or I believe, instead of just stating, here is my perspective, then before you even finish the sentence, people are not really convinced about what you're saying before anybody else responds.

And so the first step is really understanding. Really, what does influence look like to [00:05:00] you authentically and ensuring that you're showing up in a way that's authentic and powerful to you. The second piece. Once you do that internal work and shift that mindset, it's how do you really position yourself across the enterprise?

And this is more about the interpersonal relationships when you are trying to influence. Across an organization, it's really important to understand what is really important to the other people that you're working with, your key stakeholders, because we all know that whenever we're working on different initiatives within an organization.

We are specific individuals that we have to influence, and when we're going into conversations with them, we have to understand what's really important to them and positioning ourselves in a way or, or initiatives in a way that the win is clear for them. And as I said before, it's really about investing in the relationship beforehand, before [00:06:00] you.

Ask something of the relationship. And then the third piece, we take it, uh, to a broader scale. Now it's how do you navigate the organizational structure? How do you influence across organization, not just within your specific function, but having the organizational intelligence to influence across the enterprise.

Um, and again, that is about understanding what are the key priorities. In that organization and positioning your initiatives in a way that is aligned with those key priorities.

Anne: So in just a bit, we're gonna go over some step-by-step ways on how our audience can create their own individual plan for becoming an internal strategic influencer, using some of the guidelines you just brought up.

But to paint a clear picture for our audience. Could you share an example such as maybe a client you've worked with? You don't have to name names if you don't want to, of how you have actually seen this in practice and where [00:07:00] maybe. It might have not worked or may where it may have succeeded.

Kisha Wynter: Well, I can give you a story about a client that I worked with closely, and I think a lot of your listeners here on the podcast will really resonate with this.

It's the age old competition between revenue generating functions and the enabling functions. And I had one senior level leader that he was working in the oil and gas industry at the time, and he was invited. To meetings, some deal meetings, and as the finance leader, he really took a backseat. This is the idea of the self silencing that internal work that I talked about before.

He said, you know, I'm in a room with all these salespeople. They understand sales deals much better than I do. And he was having, you know, if you wanna call it impost, imposter syndrome or self-doubt. So he didn't really say anything because he said, I have no value to add. Uh, and then I [00:08:00] asked him in our coaching sessions, 'cause we.

The organization, ed engaged me to coach him. To coach him. And I asked him, I said, well, if you are not supposed to be in the room, why do you think you're there? The fact that you're the only finance person in the room probably means you have some additional insight and perspective that none of the other salesperson in people in the room have.

And he took a step back and he was just like, you know what? You are absolutely right and I found that he was underestimating his own, his own power and the own influence that he could bring to the conversation based as on his expertise. So as a result, he went back into the room. And there was a specific deal that they were trying to get across the line and they hit, uh, they really just hit a wall because the client was, I cannot, we cannot afford as a business to buy these products even though we need them.

And he thought about how he could restructure the deal financially in a way that would benefit, [00:09:00] uh, the organization as well as the client. And as a result of him doing that, he was able to close help the sales team close. Not one, not two, but three sales for that client. And it brought in an additional $20 million of revenue for the quarter, which allowed them not to just make their revenue targets for the quarter, but for the entire year.

And the takeaway for me is that a lot of times we underestimate and we don't leverage the knowledge and the power that we bring to the table because. Of, you know, this feeling of not belonging and being in the room. Once he got clear about that, even though the situation, the circumstances didn't change, he was able to contribute in such a powerful way.

Anne: I think so many of us can relate to that too. And the number of times, you know, I've walked into a room or, or one of my friends felt like they, they just weren't good enough for their promotion or [00:10:00] something. Like, they're intimidated by being in a meeting with their boss.

Kisha Wynter: And I, you know, it's funny, I, I.

Anne: Fail to actually tell myself what I tell my coworkers, my friends, my family. You know, you are important enough to be there for a reason and find that reason, so I really liked that you brought that, but really came down to that confidence. That you have to find within yourself. It's, it's hard. It's hard to learn that, you know?

Kisha Wynter: Yeah. And you know, it's funny because I could have, you know, we talked about the language before, not using diminishing language, not silencing yourself. Right. If we are not owning our voice and really understanding the value we bring to the table, overcoming that self-doubt, we will not be able to influence in the biggest way.

'cause the first person we have to be able to influence is ourselves.

Anne: Yep. Exactly. I had a feeling where you were gonna take that. I know I have to remind myself all the time, Hey, you're good at this, you can do this. And we just gotta persuade ourselves, you know, to keep going.[00:11:00]

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Anne: So, uh, Kisha, one of the concepts you coach on is mapping power dynamics within organizations. You touched on this a little bit, but we're gonna dive a little deeper. So, what does that actually mean in practice and how can understanding these dynamics inform the way professionals and leaders approach be building that influence, making those decisions, and driving those initiatives forward?

Kisha Wynter: Really important question, and this is a big deal because when I talk about navigating the organizational structure, I really think about what I call the invisible organizational chart. I. The first thing that people usually tend to look at when they're trying to move something across the line is they wanna pull up the org chart.

They wanna see who the most senior leader is within the room, within the discussion, and they try to influence that [00:13:00] person that's on top. So I think of a org chart that is like a ladder, and people think the personal on top is the one with the most power, and that's the one to influence. But that ladder is very static and it only shows job titles.

It doesn't actually show the power and the influence pathways, or it shows the power and the influence. Pathways is what is known as the invisible org chart. I call it the power chart. And. It's that individual. It's not so much a ladder 'cause it's not necessarily the person with the biggest title, but it is the person that the most senior person, maybe the C-suite, they defer to.

They look to, they rely on. And that's the person. We have to influence understanding, being able to read between the lines and know, knowing who that person is and really asking the question is, what is important to them, and how can I position my [00:14:00] message in a way that is influencing the people because.

If you only try to influence most senior people, you're most likely gonna fail because there are many different influential pathways that are going on behind the scenes, and that's why you have to study the org chart, study the influence chart, study the structure so that you know who to influence behind the scenes.

Anne: You can't, you can't Also, and this is just a thought I had, you can't really let your ego get in the way either. Like we talked about, building up confidence right into the other side of the spectrum, that ego part, you know, like you don't wanna think like you're too good to reach out to people or anything like that.

Um, not that really many people think that way. I like to thank very few do. Um, but it's, it's

Kisha Wynter: hard. You'd be surprised,

Anne: but that's important too, right? On the other side of the spectrum with that kind of thing.

Kisha Wynter: Yeah, and you know what? I'm glad you said that because early in my career I learned a lot of times that the most influential person that you can get to [00:15:00] know in an organization might be the executive admin of the C-Suite.

And you may overlook that role and not think it's so important, important, but guess who manages the calendar? Who is the person that gives you access to that leader? It is that executive assistant. So you never, to your point, look down on either thinking that I'm not good enough to reach out to the CC, C-suite.

But on the flip side, looking down on others and saying, you're not important. Um, you know, you, we have to influence. And that's what I believe. Influencing with integrity and respecting people is really important as well.

Anne: So I'd love to talk about your book. We, we, we talked about it before, earlier mentioned it, your book, your Power Unleashed, that's the title, uh, offers a practical foundation for advancing in your career and developing the influential mindset.

So in it, you talk about overcoming what you call those power leaks. What are power links to [00:16:00] you and what are some common ones you see among leaders?

Kisha Wynter: Power leaks, I say, are actions that we take that really dilute or agency or limit or influence in the moment, and it goes back to. Not showing up in our power.

It goes back to self silencing. It goes back to really either shrinking under stress or overcompensating because of insecurities. And even though we referred a little bit to some of it as a lack of confidence, I do wanna make a distinction that power leaks. I say joining your own agency because it's recognizing that we all have power.

We all have an ability to influence, but there are times because we are afraid of stepping into that power, maybe we're afraid that's going, there is going to be a backlash like the the leader, the finance leader. He was told early in his career [00:17:00] that it is the, the commercial team and the sales teams that were important and finance was just a backend function, and he silenced himself because he thought there was gonna be repercussions to him stepping into his voice and owning his power.

So it was not just about confidence, it was just the messaging that he received externally on. How he should show up in an organization. But then as he got more senior, he realized that there are decisions that he has to make. And so the way to fix power leaks, you know, beside fixing the language, which we already talked about, is to develop the competency, which I call.

Power literacy, and that is to understand how power structures in organization works within yourself, within the organization, and learning the skill of how to navigate that appropriately so that that you're not shrinking and playing small instead of stepping back, you're leaning in and utilizing that skill to learn how to influence [00:18:00] without self silencing.

Anne: You know, we mentioned how the importance of kind of teamwork, um, earlier, but you know, when it comes to these types of influence strategies or, you know, initiatives we wanna get, uh, through the organization, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, let's be real. There were serious steps that had to be taken and it sometimes it takes a little bit of time.

So what are some practical steps professionals can take? To build their influence over time. Understanding it may not happen right away. You gotta take the time to work on this.

Kisha Wynter: Yes. I love that you asked that question, and I have a little three initials that spell very fun. It spells the word wrap, but it's not wrapping.

Um, it, it's called relationships, right? So first step you have to do is, I alluded to that before. It's really. Establishing and building relationships across the organization before you [00:19:00] need them. We all, whenever we have initiatives or projects that we have to work on, we know there, there are at least two to three stakeholders that are really key to helping us getting things across the line or getting projects completed.

And I always say. If you wanna influence with integrity, one of the things you do is you try to build relationships and invest in those relationships before you ask something of them, before you extract something from them. So figuring out who those people are, getting to know them, understanding what is really important to them, so that you can get to the second step, which is alignment.

Now when you have a project that comes up now, you've already gotten to know them, you are already. Having a strong working relationship with these people. And it could even be external clients, but now you know how to align to them because you know what's really important to them. And then the third piece is really about how [00:20:00] you are positioning.

Things to them. So once you know what's important to them and you're aligned, you know what language and messaging to use that will influence them so that they really can see that the value that you are presenting is there for them as well. I give you one quick example of this. Early in my career, well actually it wasn't that early, it was about mid-career.

I was in an organization, I was in the HR function, and I heard over and over again in promotional meetings that there was a segment of the population that were, they had deep domain expertise, but they weren't able to get promoted because they lacked confidence. Um, and. That's just code word for those of us who've worked in corporate before it was code word for executive presence.

They really know all the details, but they didn't have the executive presence to get them promoted to the C-suite or the next level. And when I heard that. I immediately thought to myself, well, I have a, [00:21:00] I have a program. I can fix this through a specific training program. I presented it to my boss immediately and he was like, that was, you know, he wasn't mean.

He was super nice, but he was, he was not convinced. He, it quietly went away. So I thought to myself, okay, I need to find somebody else in the organization that really gets it. And that's where the relationship came in, because I thought about another executive that. She was very vocal about how she struggled with confidence early in her career, and I had a conversation with her and she was definitely bought in.

So I, I checked off the first box on the relationship piece. Then we became aligned and she said, well, this is, this is where we need to ensure that we're. Bringing along the senior leadership team. These are the people that we have to talk to when we came up with the strategy on how we were gonna push this across the line.

But the most important thing I learned [00:22:00] from her, which I failed to do with my leader, was position it not as a training. This is what she said to me. You can't position it as a training. Nobody wants any more training, but what we're positioning it as. A solution to a true actual leadership pipeline problem, which my boss, the CHR cared about, and the CEO of the business.

We got together, we were aligned, we presented it, and it went across the board. So that's a clear example of it's not how great, just how great you speak, it's really about establish that relationship, getting alignment and positioning your idea in a way that shows the value for the organization.

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Anne: SHRM.

So for this last segment, I love to take what we've learned here and translate it into that step-by-step plan. We mentioned earlier that our audience really could start to apply to start thinking like a strategic influencer. For example, SHRM publishes research for professionals and leaders to inform their decisions.

Making in, in making in functions like HR and leadership. But it's helpful to know how to leverage these insights to enact real organizational change. And now, our president and CEO, Johnny C. Taylor Jr. Says it himself, he likes to make data-driven decisions. Uh, he likes to have the facts behind him. He likes to understand.

Stand, you know, what is going on externally in order to make internal decisions and create initiatives. [00:24:00] So if you were coaching someone through the process of leveraging data and research, what practical steps would you recommend?

Kisha Wynter: Yeah, the first step I would recommend is really understanding what is really key and important to the business as it relates to the data.

Right. Because you're gonna get some really good information from SHRM, but you have to be able to translate it to what is important to the organization. So getting the statistics together or the information together, presenting it, going through it, and being able to show what's relevant to the organization.

So for example, I give one quick example of when I use data to convince some leaders within an organization. Um, there were, we were losing employees to attrition. Because they didn't have this sense of belonging, and I did some research around specific leadership behaviors that [00:25:00] was alienating a specific segment of the population.

The data was all there. It was very strong, but I knew in addition to the data. I needed to make it relevant to the organization because the first thing the leaders would say is, oh, we don't engage in those behaviors. And so I had to find some other leaders within the organization that had experienced some negative consequence of the behaviors.

And so we presented the data. When they pushed back, some senior leaders that were trusted in the organization said, Hey, I've actually also experienced this and. The information was there, both the quantitative data that they got externally as well as the qualitative, the anecdotal data that were shared internally.

And when we combined those two things, we didn't position it again as a culture issue, but we positioned it as if we continue to lose employees in this segment [00:26:00] of the population, it's also a missed opportunity to capture. Market value that was similar to the demographics of the employees that we were losing.

And so I think data is important in the context of. Getting the data, being able to articulate it, make it relevant to the organization, and then positioning it in a way that the people that you're trying to sell it to, whether or not it's a C-suite, really understand why it's important. So it's not, there's a study that HHBR talks about, about influencing styles, and it says, data's a big part of it.

There also may be other things such as inspiration and you wanna put it all together because it's not just about the data, it's what context in which you put it.

Anne: So Kisha, we're gonna wrap up with this. Another powerful way professionals can strategically influence their organization in by building those internal alliances you mentioned, right?

That person that might have a little more influence [00:27:00] but also. Navigating informal networks. Now, if you were coaching someone who wants to drive change by leveraging those relationships and social capital, what practical steps would you recommend beyond kind of what you gave us earlier?

Kisha Wynter: Yeah, it is about going back in, building that, in that infrastructure across the organization.

So if we know that as you ascend within the organization, it becomes even more important to influence across the enterprise, beyond your own function, and you may not know all the people to begin to build relationships with. So one strategy is to find. People that can give you strategic introductions.

You know that person that's a super connector within your organization. They know everyone. You ask them to introduce you so that it's, it doesn't feel like this cold conversation, uh, so that you can spread out your network beyond just your own immediate area. Another thing that you [00:28:00] could do in addition to that is really just ensuring that you do already have people that are, for example, mentors to you.

But how do you convert a mentor? So somebody that's in a senior position already into. Another, a person that will also become a sponsor and an advocate, and they have to be able to see you in action. And so it is getting on those projects that they can have visibility. They may like you in those one-on-one conversations, but they won't be able to advocate for you if they don't see you.

Your work life.

Anne: Kisha, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts today and walking us through your step-by-step process, giving us practical advice on confidence and remaining humble within your organization to drive your initiative. So thank you so much for joining us this week.

Kisha Wynter: Thank you. I'm. So happy to be here.

Anne: Happy to have you. All right. That's all for this week. We'll catch you next time. If you enjoyed our conversation today, be sure to subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcast, so [00:29:00] you never miss a new episode. Also, did you know All Things Work is more than a podcast? That's right. We're also a weekly newsletter that includes in-depth articles and the latest research from SHRM to keep you in the know.

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