BMA eBook - Manual / Resource - Page 96
Feser / When Execution Isn’t Enough / 8
“As an expert in this area, do you think that . . . ?”
INSPIRATIONAL APPEALS
Last come inspirational appeals, the core ingredient of inspirational leadership. They
are by far the most personal in terms of understanding others’ perspectives because they
focus on what lies deep in other people’s mind-sets: their values and emotions.
Leaders using this tactic appeal to people’s values and ideals or seek to arouse their
emotions to gain commitment for a request or proposal.17
A leader using inspirational appeals might say:
“Because you care for the development of children, I’d like you to take on the
elementary education project.”
“You’re the best one to handle this negotiation because you care about being both
businesslike and environmentally sensitive.”
We discuss the process of inspirational appeals in detail in Chapter 6.
The Frequency of Use of Individual
Influencing Approaches
Which of the nine influencing approaches do people use most?
Several studies suggest that rational persuasion is the most frequently used
influencing approach. For instance, in the early 1990s, Yukl and Falbe analyzed the
frequency of influencing approaches by gathering 504 influence-related incidents from 95
evening MBA students at a large state university. The students worked in regular jobs
during the day at a variety of large and small private companies and public agencies.
Nearly half the students were managers, and most of the rest were nonmanagerial
professionals. All incidents were reported from the perspective of the target of an
influencing attempt made by a subordinate, peer, or boss.18
According to their study, these cases used rational persuasion more than half of the
time, followed by simple requesting and personal appeals (each 12 percent of the time).
Inspirational appeals and consultation came last; each of them was used only 2 percent of
the time (Figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2 Frequency of Influence Tactics
