As someone who works with leaders around the world, one concern I hear a lot is how to deal with people who are being resistant. Unfortunately, what often happens is that the leader becomes angry or frustrated with the resistant person, and starts to become more insistent. This only makes the other person even more resistant, and a cycle of insistence/resistance is created and exacerbated.

First, it’s important to understand the science behind what is happening in both parties. For those of you who follow my “Life from the Top of the Mind” philosophy, you know that the reason that leaders become frustrated and more insistent is because their brain (specifically, their limbic system) is interpreting the other person as problematic, or a threat in some way. Of course, the resistant person is also reacting from the lower brain, which means no one is really listening.

If inspiring excellence and/or trust is our goal, then we must first come to the realization that anger is not serving us. What we want to do instead, is interpret the resistance as "good information" about what is important to the person we are wanting to influence. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we agree with them. It just means that we have increased our awareness of what isn’t working, which puts us in a great position to address the problem in a way that the other person hears as valuable.

For example, if we are talking to someone who needs to improve their performance in some way, we must first become clear about how their getting better at their job will be good for them. Notice how this is different from us trying to make them feel bad about their mistakes, or poor performance. The truth is that most people will hear this as criticism, and reject our advice or suggestions for change.

Therefore, if our becoming influential is about inspiring excellence and/or trust, I suggest that we reject the tendency to allow our anger to drive them into submission. Instead, let’s stay in the clear, confident, creative part of our brain so that they begin to see us as someone they want to trust, and someone who inspires the best in them versus criticizing their worst.

In looking back, have we really wanted to inspire excellence and trust or submission? What do we want looking forward?