Quotes About Influence

As this VP discovered, being a boss is much like being a high-status primate in any group: the creatures beneath you in the pecking order watch every move you make – and so they know a lot more about you than you know about them.

As a boss, you need to establish a pecking order where people who know the most about a problem wield the greatest influence over what is done. You especially need to watch who talks the most (and least). Don't let your people fall prey to the blabbermouth theory of leadership. At least in Western countries, people who talk first and most frequently usually wield excessive influence over others – even when they spew out nonsense.

Unfortunately, Captain Graf created fear and mistrust in her followers, rather than stoking the courage, skill, and confidence she intended.

Then there are people with modest but real power—and who take sick satisfaction from frustrating and pushing others around.

And a 2015 study by Trevor Foulk and his colleagues from the University of Florida shows that even a single exposure to a rude person (e.g., a mildly insulting email from a customer) can turn a person into a "carrier," who in turn infects others with the negative behavior—so it spreads much "like the common cold.

In the 1970s, MIT professor Tom Allen showed that the closer people sat to one another, the more frequently they communicated—not just face-to-face communication, but via all media including telephone calls.

A supervisor instructed me, "If you talk softer and softer and softer, they're going to have to stop to listen or they're not going to hear anything you're saying. The louder you get, the louder they get. And if you start to tone it down, they start to tone it down.

He learned and heard many things about the San Francisco Fire Department from powerful people who forgot he was present—including a lot of dirt—that helped him become an effective leader in a long battle against discrimination in the department.

Better yet, combine your warmth and flattery with requests that they do a small favor or two FOR YOU. This strategy is akin to what author David McRaney calls "the Benjamin Franklin effect," which is based on experiments that show we come to like people that we do nice things for and to dislike people that we treat unkindly.

When people (regardless of personality) wield power, their ability to lord it over others causes them to (1) become more focused on their own needs and wants; (2) become less focused on others' needs, wants, and actions; and (3) act as if written and unwritten rules others are expected to follow don't apply to them.

Other studies suggest that some people are grumpy, insulting, or overbearing primarily because they are insecure about their abilities and prestige. This is a hallmark of petty tyrants, which

I was the least Pop of all the Pop artists.

If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy

Few rich men own their property. The property owns them.

Averroes, the last of the great medieval Arab philosophers, was fighting a rearguard defense of philosophy that was under attack from theologians, and, though translations of his works were to be much read in the universities of Christian Europe, he had little influence on later generations of thinkers in the Muslim world.

Leadership that is not well-grounded in followership—following Jesus—is dangerous to both the church and the world.41

Hearst was eager to stoke the flames of conflict between Spain and the United States over Cuba and sent Frederick Remington the photographer, who could find no signs of war. In a famous exchange of cables, Hearst responded to Remington, "You provide the pictures; I'll provide the war."10

It's something we've seen more than once: a common thug gets a whiff of politics and next thing you know he's twice the villain he was before.

Robert J. Harris

Death is actually a blessing for a follower of Christ. Death represents a resting from our earthly labors and concerns. Our works will follow us. The good we've done on earth will continue to accrue. Our influence will remain and have a pass-along, ripple effect. The full results of our lives cannot be calculated until the dawn of eternity.

For as he thinks within himself, so he is. (Proverbs 23:7 NASB)

For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. – Romans 14:7

I can't ever let the actions of other people cause me to sin.

Had there been no Bible, there would be no America as we know it.