Your success as a leader depends not only on the quality of your work. Whether you want to get a promotion or influence Stakeholders to support your next big investment project, you need to ensure that you and your work are perceived in the desired way. Success is a function of performance and perception.

Managing perception does not mean you must put on a show or try to be someone else. On the contrary: the best leaders can put themselves into other people’s shoes and cater to their needs while remaining authentic.

This is a brief summary of the “Second Crack — The Leadership Podcast” episode “Perception Management: A Key to Influence and Success”. You can listen to the full episode here.

Your impact as a leader, your ability to influence and to be successful, depends on how other people perceive you. Therefore, you need to spend time and effort to manage other people’s perceptions actively.

How we see ourselves can be quite different from how others see us. A leader may see him-/herself as very spontaneous and their ability to adjust course quickly as a strength. However, their team members might find their frequent changes of direction utmost frustrating. Or what one considers “providing candid feedback” may be perceived by others merely as destructive criticism.

Success is a function of performance and perception. Delivering quality work is a necessity, but it is not sufficient. To be successful, others need to know about and recognise the quality of your work. “Do good things — and talk about them.”

Executive Coaching — Real Life Example: Tony (not his real name) was a director in a large multinational corporation. He became Gerrit’s executive coaching client after he applied in vain for a more senior position. Tony was well-respected and known for “getting the job done.” However, the decision-makers in the organisation doubted that Tony had the big picture view they felt was mission-critical for a higher-level role.

As part of the coaching, we conducted “verbal 360” interviews with senior management. Once Tony knew how these stakeholders perceived him, he focused on better understanding their needs and adjusting his communication style accordingly. Ultimately, Tony successfully demonstrated his ability to see the big picture and was soon appointed General Manager in another country.

Managing perception is not only critical for career advancement. It is also crucial to influence stakeholders, e.g., to get the buy-in for your next big investment project.

In a consulting project, we helped a leadership team realise their long-term growth strategy for their company. The company needed a major investment to increase manufacturing capacity massively. The local leadership team understood that, besides the technical aspects of such a mega project, they needed the buy-in from various stakeholders: their local employees, the authorities, communities, and, of course, from their management board at headquarters. The local leaders had to understand the varying needs of these different stakeholders. They needed these stakeholders to trust that the local team has what it takes to make the project successful from various points of view: technically, safety-, and business-wise.

The local leadership set up dedicated teams to deal with the different stakeholders to understand their needs and to manage perception — making sure the stakeholders see how their needs will be met through this project, and that the team handling the project was seen as competent. A year later, the Managing Director commented that he had never dreamed they would come that far in such a short time.

Reflection Questions for Leaders

• What do I want to achieve? (e.g., promotion, buy-in for a project, …)
• Who are the key stakeholders or decision-makers in this case, and what matters to them?
• Is there a gap between how I see things (myself, my results, my business plan) and how my key stakeholders perceive them?
• If so, how can I close these gaps? How can I make sure I/my team are perceived accurately?

Second Crack — The Leadership Podcast is hosted by Martin Aldergård and Gerrit Pelzer. In this show, we explore everyday leadership dilemmas and paradoxes, and we ask thought-provoking questions to help leaders grow.

Services we offer include executive coaching, leadership development programs, and leadership team workshops. Detailed info is on our website secondcrackleadership.com. Contact us now for a complimentary consultation to explore how we can help you create the right conditions for healthy performance in your organisation.

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