Being a manger or a leader to a team comes with certain privileges. For instance, you have the ability to make a junior do something. However, if you are not careful on how you use your authority, the results can be detrimental. As the ethic at the work place continues to change, people are leaning more towards persuasion to make their teams achieve certain results. Just like all other influence techniques, persuasion has its limits. Here are some things you should have in mind when using ethical persuasion to manage a team.
Overt Persuasion
The first thing you should do is to make sure that your persuasion techniques are very ethical. The most ethical persuasion technique is overt persuasion. When the person you are trying to influence is aware of what you are doing, they will be able to mentally weigh the arguments you are advancing and make an informed decision. This means that there will be no chance of them feeling cheated in any way.
Covert Persuasion
On the other hand, if you decide to use covert persuasion means, you are at risk of being misinterpreted and even losing the trust of your group. For instance, if you want an employee to try and work harder, and you decide to plan with all the others to make the particular employee feel like they are not doing their best, you might achieve your objective. However, in case the particular employee discovers what you did later, they will lose trust in you as the leader and you will have a very difficult time managing the team.
Are you coercive?
The other thing you should ask yourself is whether your persuasion methods are coercive and whether the results of the persuasion will be detrimental to the person being persuaded. Ethical persuasion methods are usually non coercive. This means that you will take time and make the employees see a certain argument from you. When they have understood the argument, they are free to make a decision. However, coercive persuasion will include a penalty if the employees do not comply with your demands. For instance if you tell your juniors that failure to comply with certain rules will lead to loss of their jobs, they will not have a positive motivation to do it.
When it comes to the objective of your persuasion, you should make sure that you are persuading the team to do something that is in their best interest. However, if your reasons in persuading your team are not genuine and are meant to help you make personal gains, you will have an ethical problem.
When you are sure that you are employing ethical techniques when persuading your team, you will have a very easy time managing it. However, if you make mistakes and engage in unethical persuasion methods, the team will lose trust in you. When employees start discussing you in terms of your unethical persuasion techniques, you will have lesser control over the group. However, if you employ positive coercion, you manage your team better.