Persuasiveness - A skill to lead

Persuasiveness –Lead with Persuasive Skills

Persuasion is something we used to do or we used to get in our life. We are crossing persuasiveness in every areas of life both personal and professional relationships. Persuasion is an innate personality trait, but it is a skill too; we can learn and adopt. Persuasive skills are one of the essential skills needed for a leader.

What is Persuasion?

Persuasion means it’s your ability to convince others to change their decisions, actions, behaviors and thinking. These things allow a leader to get things done and to achieve the desired outcome without any coercion through logical reasoning, emotions and effective collaboration.

We Persuade or get Persuaded!!??

If you love a movie, definitely you will share it with your friends by highlighting what you love, the best scenes, best dialogues, best songs and best places in that movie, best comedy scenes etc etc. This makes your friend more curious and show interest to watch that movie. – Persuasion, you are a Persuader here.

In a mall, you will get convinced to buy an another item what you are not supposed to purchase, because of the offers or benefits explained by a Sales person – Persuasion, you get persuaded here

“Sales” is the most obvious forms of Persuasion.

Why Persuasion is important?

In both Personal and Professional relationships, you can

Influence people for positive growth
Your voice can be heard in an important situation
You become a key part of your group or community
It guarantees your growth in terms of personal and careers
You will be more powerful and can lead people.

How to develop Persuasive Skills?

The act of persuasion usually involves logics and reasoning, feeling which is shared and brilliantly conveying the information through proper communication. By understanding this, you can split up the steps which are the best way to develop persuasive skills.

Dr. Robert Cialdini proposed 6 core principles that can be used for persuading others

Reciprocation: offer a gift which is meaningful and unexpected. People who receive and love that offer, definitely reciprocate in terms of your convincing thoughts or actions

Liking: Address their similarities between you and promote compliments.

Social proof: offers validity and feasibility. When we wish to buy something, we used to see the reviews. Its our mind ready to accept the third person reviews to buy a product

Scarcity: The less of something there is the more people tend to want it. Limited offers come to this category. Eg. Only 6 seats are available, offer ends in 3 days..

Authority: Authority brings trust. When you document, Researchers found this product is incredible, it will be acceptable easily. Eg. Beauty models or Actresses for acting in fairness cream advertisements.

Consistency & Commitment: You have to be consistent in your commitments. If you convince people for being punctual, you should display punctual consistently

Here are the some tips to develop Persuasiveness:

Focus on Credibility:

When you want to persuade someone, the quality of being trusted and believed is crucial. Establish strong relationships and develop in depth knowledge in your area of expertise or the thing you want to persuade. People ready to convince when they see credibility.

Knowledge:

“Knowledge is Power” is not just like another sentence. It is so crucial, prepare yourself well before persuading someone. Know and understand your opponent’s needs and interest. It helps you to convince based on this.

Emotionally connective:

Connect yourself to their emotional level. Get feedback, encourage their spirits and allow them to share their perspectives.

Build Relationships:

“Trust” and “Respect” are the core element to build relationships. Develop this through

Understanding the group interest
Compromising certain things
Honor your commitments
Mutual support.

Communication:

While communicating with people, use your knowledge wisely and leave an impact.

Listening plays a vital role in communication, giving space to share their thoughts makes them feel valued.

Asking and answering “Why” and “If” questions are critical during communication.

Emotional Intelligence:

When you want to persuade, you should be emotionally intelligent too.

Focus on benefits and transparency:

Aware about the benefits and demerits in depth and share the benefits with explaining the percentage of demerits and corrective measures. This transparency convinces people positively.