Strategic Influence- how the message is conveyed

Strategic Influence

Leverages organizational awareness to influence others to commit to corporate citizenship.

While Change Driver represents the intellectual content and structure of corporate citizenship leaders, Strategic Influence describes how the message is conveyed. This is a core and essential personal competency for any role, such as the corporate citizenship leader, where a person needs to influence people over whom she/he has no direct positional power. This is similar to the influence exerted by leaders in human resources, public relations and other support functions in the organization, when they take on an indirect leadership or Change Driver roles. Strategic Influence involves using a wide array of influence techniques with a good sense of timing and of what is best for the particular situation, so that other people willingly take action or provide support. Leaders with this competency "speak the language" of their audience. They may facilitate agreements across a variety of opinions and perspectives. They may use their understanding of the organization’s internal structure, politics and business model to find a way to influence or lead change in the organization.

As one leader recalled:

"I was helping to make the three-way conversations with [my organization] and suppliers and the public-interest group happen. I can't talk to suppliers because that's not my role. But our chief procurement officer could. So I helped influence his knowledge and his understanding of everything, while I dealt with our president and then our president talked with the presidents of the other companies."

Strategic Influence Competency developmental scale
Foundational	Intermediate	Advanced
Communicates well with others, adapting to their issues, concerns and level of understanding. Exhibits skill in delivering well-timed and effective presentations and articulating how others can contribute to corporate citizenship.	Demonstrates a good understanding of organizational politics and culture and how to build effective alliances to move corporate citizenship strategy forward. Generates a sense of ownership for initiatives among others, including stakeholders and employees at various levels.	Shows capability to work top-down and bottom-up to generate organization-wide support for corporate citizenship. Demonstrates ability to influence decision-makers to expand and maintain commitment. Represents the company in influential external networks and is seen as a leader in industry and broader corporate citizenship networks.