Have you ever stayed silent in a conversation with your friends because your opinion might come across as dumb or weird?
Personally I often put effort into conforming even with what I think my friends sound like. It doesn’t usually work. I recently DMed a friend with the slightly-too-daring greeting, “My dude.” The next time I saw my friends together, someone else asked me: “Did you message Sam saying ‘my dude’?”
The usual adult advice here is to say, don’t stress about it. So you committed a minor social infraction - big deal. We’re told people don’t care or remember or pay attention, so it doesn’t matter. No one’s judging.
This usually rings a bit hollow…
Often people do remember! Sometimes a misstep becomes a running joke, and that gives it more reach and staying power. Bad.
In my own head, I am aware of tacitly weighing up and making judgements about the things people say around me all the time. I adjust how I speak and act and even dress depending on which friends or family members are around. If I think about it, deep in my brain there are extremely detailed maps of my friends’ personalities, values, film tastes, sleeping hours, dietary needs…
Even if the risks are low, the worst case is definitely bad enough that it’s better to err on the side of caution and hold my tongue.
I’m not even that high on the neurotic scale, but I remember that time at Year 7 camp, after lights out, when I lay silently listening to my six roommates chatting, until they mentioned a creepy story I’d heard before, and I piped up that I knew this one. “Chime!” someone called out, which was the language of the day for chiming in. Oops.
We’re often acutely aware of the ways that people’s words can, like that well-worn leadership quote says, ‘unconsciously give us permission’ to say and do things.
So it’s normal to feel like our words can have lasting impacts. That on some level our friends listen and might even keep track and associate us years later with an offhand comment.
There’s a word for that attention our peers pay to us, and how it shapes their views and expectations of us, and how they adjust their behaviour around us too.
It’s influence.
This is to say, when we speak or act there are real consequences. We are watching and being watched, and everyone is adjusting their thoughts and actions accordingly.
So isn’t it weird that so few of us think of ourselves as leaders?
We say things like:
If I spoke up, no one would listen or take me seriously.
People are too busy or distracted to pay attention if I say something.
Even if I could do something, the best case is so unlikely that it isn’t worth the energy.
But in fact, in countless tiny ways every day, we’re active participants in this web of influence that alters how our friends think about us and themselves.
As we said above:
People do remember what we say.
It does affect how they think and act around us.
There’s always a chance that our words unleash not just a small amount of good but a lot.
We overrate our influence for bad and underestimate our influence for good.
If we remembered how powerful we felt to bring about our social doom in everyday conversations, we would feel unstoppable as leaders.
We can channel those anxieties into confidence - because every chat with every friend is a sign of our strength.
You already have influence. The only question is what you’ll do with it.
Leadership has never been about badges or titles. Many leaders with titles are ignored or despised. Unsung heroes have less spotlight but no less impact.
Leadership isn’t for other people. It’s for you.
Because it always starts with - well, the things you’re doing already.
Obligatory inspirational quote
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson