What impact do you have on the world you live in? How much power and influence do you have, or do you think you have? Whatever you might think, you probably have a much greater impact on the people around you and your environment than you realise. Don’t underestimate your own power!

The way that you interact in your environment is affected by the confidence you have in yourself. Your interactions will affect how you are perceived and opportunities that might therefore come your way. Your ability to influence people around you and to make things happen are similarly affected by your strong sense of self.

Your ability to be influential is definitely not down to other people or the culture of your workplace or the community around you. Your sense of self – the belief in your skills and abilities – is pivotal in you affecting the world around you. Some men and women feel that, as individuals, they are powerless to affect their environment, including people, workplaces or communities. If this is you, here is your opportunity to understand how much power and influence you really have.

Take the Power Audit

Your power and influence takes several forms.

1. Formal authority – this is power given to you by your role, job title, status or profession. It shows up as your right to make decisions and the right to insist that someone else does what you ask of them. As a teacher you have formal authority to get your pupils to do things. As an administrator you may have formal authority to make spending decisions up to a certain amount of budget.
2. Expertise – this is power coming from your own specialist knowledge, skills, experience and qualifications. As the only person in your team with a particular skill you have greater influence and power. Building your unique expertise builds your power. If you are the only one who can do statistical analysis of data you have a great deal of influence over how that data is presented, interpreted and used.
3. Resource control – this is power connected to the control of physical, financial, information or personal resources. Can you summarise complex information? If so you have the power of control over that resource. Do you allocate rotas or shifts or roles? This is also a form of resource control power. You also control how, when and how much you allow people to use your time. Your time is a very valuable resource. Use it well and exercise good judgement in how much of that resource power you give away to others.
4. Interpersonal skills – this is the power that relates to how you interact and communicate with other people. If you can form sound relationships you are better able to influence others. Your emotional intelligence, assertiveness, resilience and belief in your own value and place in the world all contribute to how you interact and communicate with others. You can build your power through developing all of these.

For each of these four categories, ask yourself what level of power and influence you currently have.

• With formal authority, does anyone need your agreement to make decisions? What are the things that only people at your level or in your position are able to do?

• With expertise, are you the most qualified person in your team? What’s your unique combination of skills, experience and knowledge that perfectly fits you for your role?

• What about resource control? What resources do you have control over – maybe access to data or passwords or certain types of forms. Perhaps you have a great network of contacts or connections with new clients or better suppliers?

• And for interpersonal skills, do people praise your ability to make friends easily or support people? Are you great at mediating in disagreements between colleagues? Do you have a sixth sense for how people are feeling and act on that?

Take some time to think about what level of power and influence you have in these four different areas. Be honest and also give yourself full credit for what you’ve achieved to date – you might surprise yourself!