Commanding vs. Influencing

Continuing with Nielsen's work, I can't help but pay kudos to the author for identifying this distinction. The whole notion of coercion as a means of "leading" or "managing" fails to take into account the human spirit. Since when is compliance the goal of leadership?

Here again, in the issue of influencing, I return to the significance of "Dialogue" as a way of "influencing." Dialogue, as outlined by Isaacs, includes the following four capacities for action.

Listening: "I have always prepared myself to speak. But I have never prepared myself to listen."
Respecting: "To respect someone is to look for the springs that feed the pool of their experience."
Suspending: "When we listen to someone speak, we face a critical choice. If we begin to form an opinion we can do one of two things: We can choose to defend our view and resist theirs or we can learn to suspend our opinion and the certainty that lies behind it."
Voicing: "To speak your voice is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of genuine dialogue. Speaking your voice has to do with revealing what is true for you regardless of other influences that might be brought to bear."

If I were to improve on just one of those capacities for action, imagine how much less "coercive" I could actually be? The challenge is for me to put these into play requires I become a different kind of person. The notion of being the same person and putting forth these actions so that I can influence is only manipulation--something that long-term destroys community. This is why I say the first question is not, "What shall I do?" but, "What shall I be?"

Until tomorrow...