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A Developmental Moment #4: What Does Influence Mean and Why Does it Matter?

Jeffrey Flesch
6 min readJan 10, 2021

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The Differences Between Internal and External Influence and Their Relationship to Service

Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash

As I was pondering the next developmental moment, and was considering influence as a topic, I had to stop, and reflect upon the past three years. What to say about influence?

Well, as with most things in my life today, an insight did occur, which will now come out through me and to you. Fun.

Alright, so influence is an important topic when you are leading teams; and, well, I do believe it is an important topic in everyone’s development, regardless of their iteration of self-development, or their interest in leadership. Why?

Because, we all will, at some point, apply for a job, need to grow our network, and, or, seek new areas of self-expression. And, to be fully self-expressed, or, rather, to self-express yourself fully, it is nice to understand the concept of influence. Let’s do just that then. Take a look at how I interpret the concept of influence.

Ready? Good. Here we go.

influence

verb /ˈɪnfluəns/

to have an effect on the way that someone behaves or

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Jeffrey Flesch
Jeffrey Flesch

Written by Jeffrey Flesch

Interests include personal and professional development, increasing access to higher education, and finding new ways to create inspiration and equity.

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