As a new executive, you may have been shying away from being an active negotiator. You may be telling yourself that other people know more than you, that they are going to see through your arguments and shoot you down, that everyone is going to see you don’t belong in this role once you step into a negotiation, etc.
If that’s how you currently feel, then how do you become a skilled negotiator?
The short answer? As Nike said, you just do it!
You negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. You practice your skills until you master them.
In the same way that we cannot let our fear of being a manipulative leader hold us back from being a sound negotiator, we cannot allow our fear of our current inexperience to hold us back either.
Negotiation skills are value-added skills in our executive strategy repertoire. As we talked about last week, being a skilled negotiator is synonymous with being a successful executive.
Think about this, learning negotiation skills and applying them on a daily basis will actually cause you to negotiate less once you master the methods.
Why?
Because part of the mastery is knowing when to negotiate vs. when to support someone else’s idea and move forward.
Negotiation skills are a solid weapon. Only the best leaders can master the use of that weapon and with the mastery comes the understanding that the weapon is only used in appropriate situations.
When the skills are used in inappropriate situations, that becomes manipulation, right?
I know we started off with this mental battle of not wanting to be a negotiator because we equated that skill set with negative intentions. I’m going to continue to push you throughout this month to embrace the skills of negotiation if you truly want to be a successful executive.
Negotiation skills must be a part of your executive brand.
The more you practice, the better you will become. The more you practice and the better you become, the more responsible you will be with this skill set. The more responsible you become, the more you will only use your skills for good and will truly be focused on contributing and serving others.
Negotiation skills are a value-add to your executive brand.
Get the workbook to learn more about the value-add concept and schedule a callwith the Legend Leaders team to learn how your Executive Brand is fairing when it comes to delivering your executive success.
Be Legendary!