Sometimes, when I’m in an important meeting, I ponder how it is that I ended up at the table.
I am a person with very little power. I am not a tall, white male. I have no claim to fame. I can’t buy my way into anything. In fact, I’m always looking for freebies – hoarding hotel soaps and scouring the internet for haircut coupons.
Despite my lack of purchasing power, I have been entrusted with a little bit of influence. That, to me, is amazing.
The internet defines influence this way:
The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.
That’s huge.
Today was one of those days where I found myself making a presentation before a group of powerful people, wondering who let me in the door. Granted, I was representing an agency and a project backed by international donors and big dollars. And I’m a foreigner. But still, I wondered at my own employer for giving me the role.
And then I looked over at the colleague I’d brought with me who was leaning in, taking notes, and facilitating my meeting with the very important men in the room. Along with being fluent in Arabic, English, and Kurdish, this woman was well-versed in camp management. She understood the body language, the intonations, and the cultures (both mine and hers), and she was the perfect person to present our project to the authorities. She held the influence, not me.
I asked my colleague after the meeting if she could have ever imagined being in that office, talking to those people. Did her family acknowledge all that she is doing? Do they know how brave she is? How skilled? Do they realize she has the possibility to change the way displaced people access services and protection? My friend shrugged.
Perhaps she was a bit like me, not quite sure how to process her own accomplishments. I prayed one day she’d see them for what they added up to–merited influence.
What about you? What sphere of influence are you operating in? Which would you rather have – influence or power?