How To Be Influential At Work
Isn’t it a great feeling when your boss appreciates your work and your colleagues praise your work? It feels like the best feeling that satisfies our need to stay at work. Respect is all we crave as human beings. However, after a point, it’s not just respect that we aspire to have. It’s more than that. We tend to get more important work, have more impact as an employee, and in short, be more influential. The ability to be influential at work can help us accomplish our personal career goals and the company’s ultimate business goals. Therefore, we all need to learn how to be more influential at work. Here are some of the most productive, subtle, and amazing ways you can turn your worth into significantly more influential when it comes to your career.
Network Building and Connections
Networking is the most important skill for building your image as an influential employee in most workspaces. People tend to be more influenced by you if they know you personally and like you beforehand. If you keep in touch with people, help them out, and share interesting conversations, they will remember you. Therefore, make friends who already have a degree of workplace influence and you will see yourself gaining recognition within most work circles. Start building your workplace network today!
Develop the Skill of Listening
While communication is an important skill, especially in the age of remote or virtual working, half of communication is listening. It’s very common for humans to talk on and on, but it’s very rare when you find someone who only listens. That person always stands out. On a chaotic day of work, when everyone is tied up in their work and priorities, people can really use someone who cares enough to listen to them. Listening to your colleague’s idea of upscaling a business, or a coworker’s stressed about balancing work and life, is a task that will benefit you in the long run because they will remember you listened to them. Thereon, they will listen to you and help you come a step ahead in spreading your influence. Incorporate this crucial skill into your lives!
Expand your Credibility
You got the job you are working on due to achieving multiple steps and a lifetime of hard work. But now that you have it, how are you going to best build your influence? Mostly by expanding your credibility! Being a working professional is not uncommon, millions of people work like you every day. The way you can stand out from the crowd is not by being a jack of all trades, but by being the master of one! Build your expertise in the field you love the most. Gain knowledge about it, make it your whole life. Once you master a field, people will come running to you for credible advice! Expertise is the only skin in the game.
Know your Office/Business In and Out
Of course, being influential means you must have an edge over your counter-peers when it comes to not just business knowledge but the ins and outs of your office’s knowledge. Office politics exist everywhere, and it’s not a bad thing. It encourages competitiveness and gives the serious business mood a slight undertone. The key to being influential is really knowing how things work in your office or company. Sometimes, roles or titles don’t matter. The most influential person is usually in charge. Knowing whose importance is growing in the office and who is being treated poorly can make you understand how to be influential within those spheres. Play your politics in a moderated amount!
Work Hard Consistently and Creatively
The one thing you can’t ever escape is working hard consistently and creatively. That should be enough to make people notice you and be influenced by your work ethic. Being a consistent performer will definitely put you on top of everyone’s priority lists. Work hard, but don’t work mindlessly on anything. Work on impactful projects, work smartly and work creatively. Bring a personal edge to whatever you work on. Pick quality work and people will notice you get advice or network with you. Remember the first step? People will want to do that with you! So work hard and work smart, keep reinventing the way you work. It will keep you interested, excited, and most importantly, make you influential in your work! Adopt these steps and watch yourself rise in your work ranks! Gain the workplace influence you deserve and set new standards for your career.