'You Have More Influence Than You Think' with Vanessa Bohns

PEO Leadership's Michele Calpin sits down with Vanessa Bohns to discuss why we fail to recognize the influence we have, and how that lack of awareness can lead us to miss opportunities or accidentally misuse our power.

Vanessa Bohns is social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. She argues that despite the popular opinion that we need to gain influence in order to get what we want, we actually already have it — we’re just not using it mindfully. If you’ve ever felt ineffective, invisible, or inarticulate, chances are you weren’t actually any of those things. Those feelings may instead have been the result of a lack of awareness we all seem to have for how our words, actions, and even our mere presence affect other people.

Weaving together compelling stories with cutting edge science and original research, Bohns offers science-based strategies for observing the effect we have on others, reconsidering our fear of rejection, and even, sometimes, pulling back to use our influence less.