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Influence & Selling Your Ideas

Influence: The Business of Getting Things Done

Strengthen influence skills to gain commitment for key initiatives that drive performance, create process improvements, and increase revenue.

Achieving the truly important things in work and life requires the ability to influence others. You can’t do it all alone.

At a basic level, influence is about compliance — getting someone to do what you want them to do (or at least not to undermine it). But genuine commitment from other people is often required for you to accomplish key goals and tasks.

Influence is one of the core leadership skills needed in every role. Effective leaders don’t just command; they inspire, persuade, and encourage. Leaders tap the knowledge and skills of a group, point individuals toward a common goal, and draw out a commitment to achieve results.

How do they do that? The best leaders have these 4 key influencing skills:

  • Organizational Intelligence: They understand how to get things done and embrace the reality of working within organizational politics to move teams and important initiatives forward.
  • Team Promotion: Leaders cut through the noise to authentically but credibly promote themselves — while also promoting what’s good for the entire organization.
  • Trust-Building: Because leadership often involves guiding people through risk and change, trust is essential.

Leveraging Networks: No leader is an island. They are empowered by their connections with others.

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Upskill Your Team with Influencing Skills

Achieve Organizational and Personal Goals by Developing Influence as a Leader

To drive effective results, your leaders need to be able to practice these 5 influencing skills:

  • Understand why influence is important.
  • Articulate personal influence strengths and developmental gaps.
  • Recognize the components of effective influence.
  • Be aware of different sources of need and motivation.
  • Apply influence concepts to real-life situations.

Help your team get things done at your organization by equipping them with the skills for using influence as a leader. We can deliver our world-class, research-backed influencing skills content to them — or you can.

You Can Deliver Our Influencing Skills Content, Or We Can

You Deliver

We can equip your facilitators to deliver a workshop or internal training on influence as a leader either online or in person, whichever you prefer:

Most Turnkey

Workshop Facilitator Kit

Access everything your internal HR or team leaders need to upskill your people by holding a leadership workshop on this topic 

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Most scalable

License This Content

Leverage this proven leadership program content and customize it for your own internal development initiatives

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We Deliver

Or, we can incorporate influencing skills as part of a larger leadership development initiative for your organization:

Most Tailored

Custom Leadership Training Module

Combine with other topic modules and interactive experiences into a customized learning journey for your leaders

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Most Integrated

Leadership Programs

Our highly personalized leadership programs prepare leaders to address common challenges with influencing skills 

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What Our Clients Are Saying

Organizations who have partnered with us to upskill their people’s influencing skills consistently tell us the same thing: their experience with CCL made a significant impact on their culture — and their bottom line.

“The Leadership Development Program was an incredibly transformational course for me. I learned things about my impact on others during this week that I did not anticipate, and though challenging to process, was a catalyst for some major breakthroughs in my ability to lead and influence within my organization. If you are willing to dive deep, commit to being open, and wanting to elevate your leadership capabilities, this program is worth every second.”

Ashlee Dutton
Manager of Development & Leadership Advancement
Pikes Peak Community College

“Coming into the Leading Strategically Experience, I was very narrow in my thinking around my strategic challenge, but by the end of the week it became much broader in scope. Although there were many takeaways, I will be focusing on developing and using strategic influence in helping others to become more strategic throughout our organization.”

Ed Miller
Divisional Vice President
Edward Jones

Let's Discuss Influencing Skills at Your Organization

Our experts are here to help. Let’s have a conversation about how to have influence as a leader at your organization and how our influencing skills content could help support your development initiatives.

Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)® will use this information to ensure the best response to your inquiry. By submitting this form, you acknowledge that CCL may contact you.

At CCL, we care about your privacy. The information you share with us will only be used to better service you and in accordance with your consent. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

Our Research-Backed Perspective on Influencing Skills

Master the 3 Ways to Influence People
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Master the 3 Ways to Influence People

If you can influence other people, you have a better chance of getting things done. Depending on your situation and what you’d like to achieve, try these 3 ways to influence people.

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How to Give the Most Effective Feedback
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How to Give the Most Effective Feedback

Learning to give effective feedback and understanding the different types of feedback can make all the difference between an effective performance review and a conversation that both people dread.

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The Role of Power in Leadership
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The Role of Power in Leadership

Few leaders understand how best to use their power for the greater good. Learn our recommended strategies for leveraging power in leadership effectively.

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Other Topics Related to Influence as a Leader

Package our research-backed influencing skills content with other proven leadership development topics and solutions for a customized, scalable solution perfect for your organization’s unique needs, context, and culture. Related topics include:

Collaboration & Teamwork

Listening to Understand

Communication

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