3 kinds of influence

yesterday i was thinking driving in the car. (about the only chance i ever have to think anymore.)

i was thinking about leadership and influence. more specifically i was thinking about WHY people get stuff done/do stuff for other people. like at a job... WHY does an employee do something for their boss. OR even another peer leader within the organization.

or really why does anyone do anything for anyone else.

influence.

we influence other peeps to do stuff for us.

but there seems to be to be 3 different kinds of influence. (i bet there are more than 3. this is just as far as my thought got as long as my drive was to the next place.)

influence #1 - FEAR. fear of something negative happening if you don't do whatever the boss or whoever wants you to do. Fear that you will lose your job if you don't do it. or fear that the other person will be mad. fear that if you don't do what they want you to do then they will nag you to death until you do it. fear that if you don't do what they need/want then they can make life miserable for you.

yeah, i guess this is a kind of influence right? you do something for someone because you are worried about the outcome if you don't.

influence #2 - LIKE. i do stuff for people because i just straight up like them. i believe in them or what they're doing or i'm just bought in to who they are. could still be a boss or peer or just someone you know. if you like them they have won influence with you. so when they ask you to do something you do it because you like who they are. they have won you over so you are in.

influence #3 - NONE. it feels like a lot of leaders get stuck here. they want #2 but they don't quite make it. they reject #1 because they feel like those peeps are jerks and they want #2 but they get lost and flounder somewhere in the middle.
these are the leaders and bosses who try to be nice, so they don't influence peeps to do stuff just out of fear... but they don't quite win anyone over either.
no one fears them and everyone likes them well enough... just OK. but not enough to bend over backwards for them and do what they ask.

#1 influencers get people to do stuff because they wear people down or scare them into doing it.
#2 influencers get people to do stuff because people love them.

but the #3 people... don't really get anyone to ever do anything for them. these kind of leaders can't get anything done in the organization. it almost seems like they would be better off to go ahead and be jerks and lead with fear than to flounder in the middle.

of course nobody wants to stay around those people for very long.

obviously #2 is where it's at. win people over to who you are. be someone they can believe in. be someone they want to "do stuff for".

seems like that's the only real kind of influence.