How To Build Your Power And Influence Within The Workplace

Through the years, I’ve featured four books by Robert L. Dilenschneider on my blog. His books are that good.

Today, I highlight his newest title, The Ultimate Guide to Power & Influence, which is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller and has also been on the USA Today bestseller list.

In our rapidly changing world, adaptability and influence are key to success. “The book is a comprehensive guide designed to help young professionals and career changers navigate these changes,” says Dilenschneider.

The book is structured into 15 insightful chapters, each focusing on a unique aspect of power and influence. “Every chapter has something relevant for you, no matter your age or place in your career. Pick and choose what you need when you need it,” explains Dilenschneider.

You’ll learn about:

understanding the power of personal connections
how to pivot in your career
the right way to make mistakes
how to use influence for the greater good
how to be a memorable manager
effective networking

Robert L. Dilenschneider

Today, Dilenschneider shares these insights with us:

Question: What inspired you to write The Ultimate Guide to Power & Influence?

Dilenschneider: I was inspired to write The Ultimate Guide to Power & Influence because I saw a need for a practical, insightful guide to help professionals navigate the rapid changes in our world.

Over my decades as a consultant to major companies and leaders, I've accumulated lessons and perspectives that I wanted to share. My goal was to provide a comprehensive playbook, drawing from real-world examples, to empower professionals at any career stage to build influence, lead effectively and use power responsibly. This book represents the culmination of my life's work advising executives across industries.

Question: Can you share a key lesson or insight from the book that you believe is particularly important for today's professionals?

Dilenschneider: One of the most important lessons from the book is the need to learn from your mistakes daily.

As you gain more influence, you'll be taking greater risks, spearheading new initiatives, and managing crises. This inevitably leads to setbacks and missteps. However, mistakes become invaluable learning opportunities if embraced the right way. Analyze why it happened, how you could improve, and what you'd do differently next time. Share the lessons with your team. Don't dwell on the mistake but reflect on it - then move forward smarter. This mindset allows you to take risks without fear of failure holding you back. My decades as a consultant have shown me that the most successful leaders adopt this mentality.

Question: What are some common mistakes people make when trying to gain power and influence, and how can they avoid them?

Dilenschneider: Common mistakes in gaining influence include lacking a defined mission, poor communication skills, inflexibility, disingenuous networking, and compromising values for expediency.

Avoid these pitfalls by clearly articulating your goals, honing how you listen and connect with people, staying nimble to meet changing needs, building authentic relationships, not just superficial contacts, and adhering to your principles even when tempted to cut corners.

Success without integrity is hollow. Keep your ethical compass as your guide. With purpose, adaptability, genuine communication and leading by example, you can build influence with integrity. Those are the values I instill in my book to help professionals avoid common missteps.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

How To Be A Generous Leader

Speaking about his book, The Generous Leader , author Joe Davis says, “This book is about the ways in which you can become a generous leader to be part of something bigger than yourself .” He adds that the old model for a leader – a top-down, unilateral, single-focus boss, isn’t effective in today’s workplace. “That old model no longer attracts talent, invites collaboration, or gets the best results from the team. That leader’s time is passed. Today, there is a need for a more human-centered, bighearted, authentic way to lead,” adds Davis. To help you become a generous leader, Davis introduces you to seven essential elements that he believes will develop you into a leader for the future . The seven elements are: Generous Communication : Be real to build deep connections. Be available to connect with the person, and not just the person in their role to make them feel seen. Generous Listening : Be sincerely curious about another...

How To Lead From The Inside Out

The book, The Journey of Leadership , brings the experience of one of the world’s most influential consulting firms ( McKinsey & Compan y ) right to your fingertips. “We offer in this book a step-by-step approach for leaders to reinvent themselves both professionally and personally,” explain co-authors Dana Maor , Hans-Werner Kaas , Kurt Strovink and Ramesh Srinivasan . This book includes revealing lessons from McKinsey & Company’s legendary CEO leadership program, The Bower Forum , which has counseled more than five hundred global CEOs over the past decade. The authors assert that if you are a traditional left-brained leader who’s great at numbers, planning and scheduling, your job might be threatened in the future. “Going forward, the differentiating factor will be human leadership that gives people a sense of purpose and inspires them, and that cares about who they are and what they’re thinking and feeling....

Why A Team Needs More Than Strong Leaders

The book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are: The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous...

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

70 New Year's Resolutions For Leaders

With 2026 fast approaching, it's a good time to identify your New Year's Resolutions for next year. To get you started, how about selecting one or more of the following 70 New Year's resolutions for leaders? Perhaps write down five to ten and then between now and January 1, think about which couple you want to work on during 2026. Don't micromanage Don't be a bottleneck Focus on outcomes, not minutiae Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times Conduct annual risk reviews Be courageous, quick and fair Talk more about values more than rules Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance Constantly challenge your team to do better Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own Err on the side of taking action Communicate clearly and often Be visible Eliminate the cause of a mistake View every problem as an opportunity to grow Summarize group consensus after each deci...

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability . They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

The Ideal Company Culture

Fortunately, most of my career I’ve worked in effective corporate cultures. If I put together the best of each, here is what made those environments effective: • Leaders led by example on a consistent basis and were willing to roll up their sleeves, particularly during tight deadlines or challenging times. • Employees clearly understood how what they did made a difference and how their contributions made the organization more profitable and/or more effective. • The workforce included a blend of long-term employees with a rich company, product/service and customer history; employees who had been at the company for five to seven years;and then new hires with a fresh perspective and keen sense of new technologies and techniques. That blend worked best when the mix included virtually all A-players. • Top managers had a clear, realistic and strategic vision for how the company would grow and comp...

The Psychology Of Leadership

I read many books about leadership and this book is one of my favorites. It’s The Psychology of Leadership by Sebastien Page . It offers a fresh take on leadership through the lens of groundbreaking research in positive, sports, and personality psychology. “Like exercise strengthens your body, practicing positive, sports, and personality psychology will make you a better leader,” says Page. The book blends research, fascinating true stories, humor, and self-improvement advice to deliver simple yet powerful principles to master the mental game of leadership. Page reveals timeless strategies for achieving lasting impact, fostering growth, and promoting well-being. He demonstrates how leaders and individuals can balance measurable goals with practical approaches to maximize performance and fulfillment. “Effective leadership is not merely about achieving measurable outcomes. It requires aligning goals with intrinsic motivations and psychological ins...

How To Uncover Your Blindspots To Become A More Effective Leader

What you don't see about yourself can hold you back as a leader. That's typical for many leaders. What we don't see is what we can't see: we have blindspots . Your blindspots prevent you from achieving your greatest success. “It turns out that we're often not great judges of ourselves, even when we think we are. Sometimes we're simply unaware of a behavior or trait that's causing problems,” explains Martin Dubin , author of the book, Blindspotting: How To See What’s Holding You Back As A Leader . “Bottom line: until we uncover these blindspots, we can't move forward. The good news is that you can learn to do your own blindspotting .” “Most of us understand the idea of blindspots in a general sense—areas we can’t see, to take the term most literally, or places we have gaps that we may not even realize, to be a little more abstract,” says Dubin. “But in the context of this book, I’m defining blindspots quite specifically: They are the...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog