The Influence Flywheel 🌀: A Systematic Approach to Building Leadership Influence
A practical model to help you earn trust, inspire action, and build influence without formal authority
In this issue:
Part 1: Understanding Influence in Leadership
What is Influence without Authority?
The Five Spokes of Influence
The Influence Flywheel
Part 2: Applying the Influence Flywheel
Turning the Flywheel: 3 Steps
Real-Life Leadership Scenarios
The Influence Flywheel Worksheet
Part 3: Going from here
Complementary Frameworks
Recommended Resources
Final Takeaway
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Have you ever noticed how your boss and other stakeholders show up to your meetings, nod politely… and then go back to doing exactly what they were doing before? It’s frustrating when you’ve got the title, but not the traction.
In Confessions of a Middle Manager: Secrets, Regrets and Guilty Pleasures, I shared a dilemma most middle managers face every day:
We have the title and, supposedly, the authority, but we still feel powerless.
In The 48 Laws of Power ⚡️ in Leadership, we unpacked some of the rules that silently shape how power works at work. The reality is that true power doesn’t come from authority or rank.
It comes from influence.
In this article, we will learn about The Influence Flywheel, a practical way to grow your influence, no matter your title. You will learn how to apply this in your own leadership role to build influence strategically and systematically.
Here’s a quick sneak peek of the Influence Flywheel in action:
Ready to explore? Let’s dive in!
Part 1: Understanding Influence in Leadership
The most successful leaders are masters of influence without authority.
But, how do they do it? What makes some leaders so influential, even when they’re not “in charge”? And what does influence without authority even mean?
What Is Influence without Authority?
Contrary to what most people believe, influence is not about being loud. It’s not about being liked. And it’s definitely not about the corner office.
Real influence is the ability to move people by choice, not by force.
Influence without authority is the ability to drive movement and energy without necessarily having the formal position or authority.
Let’s do a quick comparison between influence with and without authority:
Influence With Authority
This is the kind of influence that comes with a formal role. You have the power to assign tasks, approve budgets, and make decisions that others must follow. Think manager, Director, VP, etc. People listen because they have to. Your influence is backed by organizational structure.
While this type of influence can get quick results, it often leads to compliance, not commitment. It works best when paired with trust, psychological safety, and empathy, not just power.
Influence Without Authority
This is when you lead without the title or formal authority. You can’t directly assign tasks, nor can you control the rewards, or even the consequences. But people still listen to you, follow your lead, and support your ideas because they want to. Your influence comes from trust, relationships, and clarity of thought.
This kind of influence often has a deeper impact. It builds alignment and clarity without requiring obedience.
The Five Spokes of Influence
To build real, lasting influence without authority, you need traction.
From my own experience leading teams, negotiating with stakeholders, and building influence over two decades, I have come to conclude that traction comes from five key ingredients. Think of these as the five spokes that keep your influence flywheel spinning:
Credibility
Connection
Clarity
Communication
Courage
Let’s now discuss each of these spokes in more detail.
1. Credibility
Influence begins with trust.
Without it, the rest of the flywheel doesn’t turn. Credibility is about being dependable. It’s the sense that people can count on you to follow through, tell the truth, and own your choices. When people trust you, they’re more willing to follow you even when they’re not completely aligned.
Research from Harvard Business Review shows that high-trust leaders drive higher performance, and teams are far more likely to innovate and collaborate when trust is present. Trust can take months to build and just one moment to break. That’s why credibility is the non-negotiable foundation of influence.
Check out 10 Reasons Your Team Secretly Hates You for some anti-patterns, i.e., things to avoid if you want to build credibilty with your team.
Credibility comes from:
Following through on promises
Owning mistakes
Saying “I don’t know” when that’s the truth
👉🏼 Influence starts with trust and credibility. If you lose credibility, every conversation will become harder because people will stop believing your words.
2. Connection
Influence without connection is just noise.
People don’t care how smart you are until they know you care about them. Connection means creating a space where others feel heard, valued, and safe to speak up. It’s how trust becomes stronger and how influence sticks for a longer time (not just in the moment).
In short, the stronger your connection with someone, the more likely they are to support you. Looking for some inspiration on building psychological safety in your team? Check out: The Four Zones of Psychological Safety: Where Does Your Team Sit?
Connection comes from:
Genuine listening (not just hearing)
Creating psychological safety
Being there for others when they need you
👉🏼 You can't influence people you don’t genuinely connect with. When people feel heard and safe to speak up, they’re more open to what you have to say.
3. Clarity
Good intentions and strong relationships won’t get you far if your message is confusing.
Clarity is what transforms ideas into action. It means separating the signal from the noise, and providing a clear vision and direction for the path forward.
Gartner research shows that teams with clearly communicated goals are nearly three times more likely to achieve them. Leaders often think they’re being clear, but if the message doesn’t land, it doesn’t matter.
In Cleverness to Clarity: Why (and How) Leaders Should Communicate Clearly we discussed the 2N formula for bringing clarity into your communication.
Clarity comes from:
Naming the “why” behind your “what”
Painting a clear picture of the future
Being objective and data-driven
👉🏼 If your message is fuzzy, even the most engaged team will lose interest. Be clear and to the point to avoid confusion.
4. Communication
Communication is how you deliver your message.
Your goal is to make every word count. To move the people, not just inform them. And the best way to do that is through storytelling.
According to Stanford research, stories are 22 times more memorable than facts alone. If you want your ideas to spread and stick, learn to frame them in a way that speaks to both the heart and the mind of your audience.
In The 3 Stages of Communication in Leadership we discussed how great leaders master the art of communication by moving up the stages. In The 3 Secret Ingredients to Becoming a Master Persuader we discussed the three ingredients that can make your stories impactful.
Communication comes from:
Framing your message for your audience
Using stories instead of slides
Simplifying the complex
👉🏼 How you deliver your message is crucial to influencing your audience. Use stories to connect more deeply.
5. Courage
This is the hardest spoke in the flywheel, but also the most defining.
Courage is what helps you speak the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s what allows you to make hard decisions, challenge the status quo, and stand by your values when it's tempting not to.
The Center for Creative Leadership found that courageous leaders earn significantly more trust and long-term influence. Your team trusts you more when you take risks, and call out the elephants in the room. In Radical Candor: How to Be Direct Without Being an Asshole we discussed how you can give direct, impactful feedback to your team and stakeholders, which is also an act of courage.
Courage comes from:
Calling out the elephants in the room
Making bold decisions
Holding yourself and your team accountable
👉🏼 People are more likely to follow you when they know you’ll speak up when it matters.
The Influence Flywheel
Each of the five ingredients - Credibility, Connection, Clarity, Communication, and Courage - is powerful on its own. But the real magic happens when they start working together, complementing and reinforcing each other to build influence.
This is what I call the Influence Flywheel.
Just like a real flywheel, it takes some initial effort to get going. But once you start spinning it, once trust becomes deeper, you start delivering clear messages, and your communication starts connecting more deeply, each part reinforces the others.
Ultimately, influence is about building momentum through trust and partnership.
Now that we have a solid foundation about the Influence Flywheel, let’s turn our attention to learning how to apply this to build influence in your leadership role.
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Part 2: Applying the Influence Flywheel
In this section, you will learn how to apply the Influence Flywheel in your role as a leader.
We will start by reviewing a simple, 3-step method you can use to Turn the Flywheel (i.e., start building influence) in your own role right away.
We will then discuss some common real-life leadership scenarios, and how you would apply this framework in each of those.
Finally, we will make it real with The Influence Flywheel Worksheet, which will help you build your muscle in applying and using this framework in your leadership role.