How to Influence Without Trying to Convince

I recently worked with a senior leader who was dreading an upcoming meeting with her manager. She felt he didn’t really see the value of her work, and his questions felt like criticism.

She avoided working with him, and over time stopped respecting his leadership.

This dynamic is incredibly common, and it’s one of the main reasons many leaders disengage and quietly start interviewing somewhere else, even when they love their work.

If you’ve ever felt unappreciated, criticized, or defensive with a manager, you know how hard this is. So you try to prove yourself and go into meetings feeling either defensive or defeated.

But what if instead of asking “How do I prove myself?”, you ask instead, “What do we both actually care about and agree on?”

That question can change everything.

So my client, instead of preparing to defend herself in front of her boss, elevated her perspective and recognized that they both wanted the same thing: for the project to succeed, for the team to thrive, and for their work to have real impact.

She asked her boss: “What would make this project a success from your perspective?”

The tone of the meeting changed immediately, because the conversation was no longer about her worth or his authority, but about the work they were there to do together.

This is the visual I use to explain what’s happening in moments like these, and I call it The Triangle of Influence.

The paradox of influence is this: the harder you try to convince, the less influence you have, and when you care more about the quality of the outcome than about being right, people trust you more.

May the best idea win. And it doesn’t have to be yours.

This is exactly the kind of leadership capacity we build inside the Inside Out Leadership Accelerator (IOLA), particularly in Week 6: Communicate & Influence Effectively, where we focus on communicating with intention, clarity, and presence, even when the stakes are high.

Inside Out Leadership Accelerator (IOLA) 2026

Inside my signature 9-week program, the work is to transform how you see yourself, how you relate to your work, how you make decisions, and how you show up when the stakes are high.

IOLA 2026 begins February 27th

I only run this program once this year.

If your intention is to expand your leadership capacity and lead with greater clarity, confidence, and influence, IOLA is designed to support that next level of growth.

I would be honored to support you in up-leveling your leadership inside this powerful container.

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I can’t wait to see the magic of the IOLA 2026 cohort!