You Have More Influence Than You Think: How to Use Leadership Influence to Build Empowering Cultures and Prevent Team Burnout
Reading time: 6–8 minutes
Quick Summary
You have way more influence than you think—and it shapes everything around you.
Beat down or lift up: That's the question every leader must answer.
Comprehend your power. Raise others up regularly. Stay grounded in service.
Use the 70% rule: If they can do it 70% as well as you, hand it off.
Start with trust instead of making people earn it.
One leader to empower this week—that's your next right step.
Welcome back to 2026, leader.
Most people start the year with goals. Big plans. Ambitious targets for the quarter. Strategic initiatives mapped out on whiteboards and spreadsheets.
But here's what I've learned after coaching hundreds of leaders through burnout, toxic team dynamics, and organizational transformation: goals don't change culture. Leaders do.
And the way leaders change culture isn't through vision statements or strategic plans. It's through something far more subtle and far more powerful: influence.
Your influence—the largely invisible force that shapes atmosphere, builds trust or erodes it, and determines whether people around you feel empowered or slowly beaten down—matters more than you probably realize.
That's why we're kicking off 2026 on the H2 Leadership Podcast with a new series on The Five Spheres of an H2 Leader. Five foundational areas every leader must pay attention to if they want to be Healthy + High Impact for the long haul.
And we're starting with the most fundamental sphere: influence.
The Tale of Two Leaders
I coach two very different leaders, and the contrast is striking.
The first leader works under someone who is brilliant but deeply insecure. This boss constantly needs the spotlight, the affirmation, the credit. Every win must flow through them. Every idea must originate with them.
Over time, this sharp, competent leader has been slowly minimized—deadened by someone who doesn't comprehend the power they hold. This incredibly capable person has been beaten down by a leader who doesn't understand the full impact of their leadership.
The second leader experiences the exact opposite.
Their boss is always asking, "How can I raise up other people? How can I get these people to shine?" This leader forms a protective line around the team, especially young leaders, making sure they're resourced, supported, and positioned to succeed. They want their people to be famous for what they do. They want them to be taken care of.
Same level of talent. Totally different outcomes.
"Beat down or lift up. That's the question."
Do the people around you—your team, your family, your organization—feel diminished by your presence, or empowered by it?
The Weight of Presence
Here's the uncomfortable truth: you carry influence everywhere you go. Your mood changes rooms. Your anxiety creates anxiety. Your groundedness brings clarity.
Leadership is demanding, but you don't have to do it alone. Part of not doing it alone, though, means understanding how your presence impacts the people around you.
Think about your own experience. You've walked into meetings feeling defeated, and suddenly your team mirrors it—defensive, guarded, reactive. You've walked in with a scarcity mindset, worried there's not enough to go around, and watched as people start defending territory instead of taking new ground.
You've also walked into meetings grounded, abundant, and clear—and felt the room shift. Problems get solved. Ideas flow. Trust builds.
Wherever you go, you carry influence. You change the mood or the atmosphere of the room you walk into.
And if you don't comprehend that influence—if you don't recognize the power you hold—you will unintentionally harm the people around you.
"The leader who does not comprehend their influence is bound to wound the people around them."
We see this play out with mothers and fathers. We see it with friends. We see it with people who walk in and diminish others versus those who multiply and raise people up.
Three Steps to Healthy Influence
So how do you shift from being a leader who diminishes to one who multiplies? Let me offer a framework.
First: Comprehend the Power You Have
Most leaders underestimate their influence. They don't realize how much their mood, their scarcity mindset, or their lack of groundedness shapes the culture around them.
You must comprehend the power that you have. And you may say, "I don't have power." Maybe "influence" sounds better to you. But in many organizations, even if there's less formal power, there's relational influence. And how are you utilizing that?
If you don't believe you have power, go ask your team. I've done this before and realized that I have influenced people in ways I had no idea—some great, some not so great. They're watching our lives. Unfortunately, they've learned some habits I wish they hadn't.
Ask questions like:
How does my mood impact the team?
When I walk into a room, how does the energy shift?
Do you feel empowered or restricted by my leadership?
Their answers might surprise you. Some will be encouraging. Some will sting. But you can't steward what you don't see. Comprehension comes first.
Second: Find Tangible Ways to Raise Others Up
This isn't a once-a-year thing. It's a regular rhythm of how you lead.
If we're aiming at servant leadership, there will be times when it hurts a little. Times when we raise other people up for the opportunity we wish we could have. That's not wrong—wanting the opportunity for yourself isn't wrong. But always be looking out for other people.
Some practical ways to do this:
Give credit. Take the blame.
I know it's not fair, but it's part of leadership. When things go well, point to your team. When things go wrong, own it.
Use what I call the 70% rule.
If someone on your team can do something 70% as well as you—with upward momentum—then it's time to entrust that to them.
You don't wait for perfection. They're not going to be able to do it perfectly. And that's okay. If they can do it 70% as well with upward trajectory, hand it off.
Start with trust.
Stephen Covey talks about this in The Speed of Trust—why it's so important that people don't have to earn trust first. If you want people to be trustworthy, then you give them trust. How do we get people to be trustworthy? We give them trust.
Could people abuse that? Of course they could. But starting with trust is really, really important. If people have character flaws, they're going to come out over time. But giving people trust upfront is powerful.
"You can tell a lot about a leader by who they give their power away to."
Bring others with you.
When you get an opportunity—a speaking gig, a high-visibility project, a meeting with senior leadership—ask yourself: "How can I bring other people with me? How can I let other people shine? How can I get them the gig and then recommend that they take that from me?"
This is the incredibly selfless part. Again, if we're aiming at servant leadership, there will be times when it hurts. When we raise other people up for the opportunity we wish we could have.
Third: Stay Grounded with a Posture of Service
People can feel it when you walk into a room.
Are you there to serve, or to be known? To empower, or to control? To raise others up, or to protect your position?
This posture doesn't happen by accident. It requires daily groundedness—prayer, solitude, sometimes sitting in the car for five or ten more minutes before you walk into the house or the meeting. Whatever it takes for you to get into that space where you can bring your very best.
Because here's the reality: empowering cultures aren't built once a year. They're built regularly.
One-off encouragement isn't enough to tip the scales of an empowering culture. That's enough to inject a little confidence once in a while in people. But for this to be a regular part of the culture, you need to regularly be the leader who's identifying people who are ready, who are waiting, who are in process at that 70% or more, and be able to entrust things to them.
The Leader Who Gets It Right
There's a leader I coach who I greatly respect. They're continually finding ways to raise other people up to positions they don't even feel like they're ready for. This leader is ready to pour into them, and then scoot back and move to another part of the business.
Why is the business flourishing?
Because other people have been entrusted with influence. They've been equipped well. They've been empowered. They've been given their shot to take their shot. And then this leader moves on and continues to find other people.
That's why their culture is rising. It's not a once-in-a-while thing. It's a regular thing.
People Can Feel It
For years I've been a speaker going into different environments. But before that, I would host gatherings and bring leaders in to share. Sometimes over coffee, I could immediately know: this is the kind of grounded servant leader who I want to influence our people.
Then there were other times where people would reach out—one particular leader was kind of beating down my door through email to get onto our podcast. It just felt a little wrong. This person was overeager in a way that raised flags.
There's another leader I met with for coffee. About 30 minutes in, I said, "You have a powerful, valuable story. Would you speak to this gathering of people?" I'd never heard this person speak publicly. Only met them for 30 minutes over a cup of coffee.
Why did I ask?
"People can feel it when somebody comes in with a posture to serve, not with a posture to be known."
This person had a posture of service. I could tell they were one who empowered other people. I can feel it when somebody comes in and wants to speak in an environment because they just want to be known. They have a need. They're insecure. They want their message to go out.
But I can also tell when somebody comes in with a posture to serve. They're thinking about the people, not themselves. They're asking questions. They're hungry to know what the people are going through so they can come with a posture to serve.
Your team can feel it. Your family can feel it.
The question is: what are they feeling when you walk into the room?
Your Next Right Step
Let me leave you with a few questions:
Number one: Who are you empowering right now?
Not just mentoring. Not just managing. Actually empowering—giving them decision-making authority, creating space for them to lead, raising them up to do the thing they're uniquely designed to do.
Number two: How are you specifically doing that?
What's your way? What's your angle? What's the way that you specifically choose to raise other people up?
And lastly: Do people around you feel lifted up or beat down by your leadership?
If you don't know the answer to that last question, it's time to ask.
This is the first sphere—influence. This is about reevaluating the power you wield and how, instead of diminishing people, you can actually raise others up.
There is fear here for everybody. How will they do? We'll see. What will it be like? Will they lead differently than you? Yes, they will. But is it worth it to build this?
Yes. Personally, you need space in your own life. Is this worth it to raise other people up? Yes, it is one of the greatest feelings possible—raising other people up to do the thing that they are uniquely designed to do.
And this is a massive gift to a culture. When you create an empowering culture where you raise other people up, they multiply their impact and become multipliers instead of becoming diminished and beat down.
Lead Well in 2026
This is just the first sphere in our new series on The Five Spheres of an H2 Leader. Over the next few episodes on the podcast, we'll unpack:
Sphere 2: Health — How leaders who don't take care of themselves can't sustain impact
Sphere 3: Self-Awareness — Knowing your design and working with it, not against it
Sphere 4: Design — Leading from your unique wiring, not someone else's playbook
Sphere 5: Space — Creating margin so you can lead for the long haul
If 2026 is the year you want to lead with clarity instead of chaos, this series is your foundation.
Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to the complete episode on the H2 Leadership Podcast: "You Have More Influence Than You Think | The Five Spheres of an H2 Leader (Episode 1: Influence)."
And for coaching, consulting, and resources to help you lead as a Healthy + High Impact leader, visit h2leadership.com.
Leadership is complex, but it doesn't have to be lonely.
Let's get after it.