Alpha Leadership Strategies

The alpha male is a leader. He’s the person who determines the direction that other people follow. His emotional status sets the tone for the group’s mood. He willingly influences group’s decisions, and his opinions carry a lot of weight—others instinctively trust them. Often, people have more faith in the leader’s thoughts and opinions than they do in their own.

What happens when you and another person have differing opinions? Not everyone will agree with a leader’s opinion 100 percent of the time. Whose opinion will the other people in the group see as the right one? The leader in any situation will be determined by which person becomes the most influential—and not by who has the right opinion.

How can you successfully persuade other people to your point of view? Ideally, you want to be considerate of other people’s feelings and respect their opinions. How do you lead other people in a harmonious fashion? Is that always possible?

A major challenge in communication occurs when a person is affected by how other people react to the opinion he offers. A problem arises when a person tries too hard to be politically correct. A person’s communication style weakens when he tries to get other people to see things his way without offending them. Although his intentions may be honorable, the person who tries that approach is often extremely ineffective.

You must have confidence in your opinion when presenting it to other people, and you must present it in a confident manner. Most important, you can’t try to climb into another person’s mind and guess how he or she will react to what you’re going to say.

Most people seek love, approval and validation from others to some extent. That’s just being a human being. Some people need approval more than others do, however. How about you?

Understanding that common element in human nature and how it affects the way you communicate with other people can work either for you or against you. It all depends on how you use the powerful information I’m presenting this month.

To become a powerful, influential and charismatic alpha male, you need to either stop needing approval from other people or do an awesome job of giving them the impression that you don’t need their approval. The alpha male needs approval less than the other people in his group—or shows that he needs it far less.

There is a saying, “Nice guys don’t finish last; pleasers do.” You can’t aggressively go for what you really want in life with 100 percent focus, effort and enthusiasm while desperately trying to please other people at the same time. It just doesn’t work. You will end up pleasing no one.

The way you communicate with other people has a tremendous impact on the level of success you are able to achieve. You are always communicating your thoughts and perceptions to other people—whether you realize it or not. The alpha male is extremely aware that he communicates to the world mostly through body language, facial expression, eye movement and voice quality—not the words he uses. In fact, studies show that up to 93 percent of communication occurs that way. Your body language is extremely important when you present your opinions to other people.

When you’re making your point and trying too hard to please the other people, you can’t help communicating incongruence. In other words, you unintentionally transmit mixed messages through your body language. You may be saying one thing with your words, but your facial expression, eye movement and voice quality will inevitably tell a different story. Without realizing it, you’ll show a lack of confidence. You’ll communicate indecisiveness.

Aren’t you putting yourself through a lot of unnecessary mental and emotional effort just to neutralize your opinion? That’s what happens when you try to please others when stating your opinions. You leave yourself open to being challenged by even the most uninterested and unqualified people. People will subconsciously sense weakness in your opinion and won’t be impressed by it—no matter how logical it may be.

And that’s a lot of effort to exert when all it earns is a lack of respect from others. Getting 100 percent approval should never be your goal. You’ll never get it.

You want to earn other people’s respect. Although other people may not agree with your opinions, they’ll respect you when you confidently take a position on one side or the other. People will respect you when you’re decisive. They’ll respect you when you’re passionate, competent and focused. When you present yourself that way, you’ll discover that they will adjust to your way of thinking without much challenge.

Practice this MANformation mind-set by quickly, concisely and confidently stating your opinion every chance you get in your day-to-day life. State your opinion with congruent body language. “I can see both sides of the issue,” “What do you think?” or, “It doesn’t really matter to me” are no longer options for you. Just as you strengthen your muscles when you exercise in the gym, you’ll strengthen your ability to present your opinion powerfully and lead other people when you exercise this skill every time you can.

Have the courage to just say it. Have the courage to just do it. Have the courage to just be it. Start teaching other people to live in your version of “reality.” Trust yourself. Trust that other people are fair and rational.

Editor’s note: Six-time national-champion bodybuilder and success coach Skip La Cour is the creator of MANformation, a powerful personal-development and fitness program for men that’s based on the qualities and actions of the world’s most powerful, influential and charismatic men. It is a structured series of alpha leadership strategies for transforming you into the man you really want to be. It doesn’t matter where you are in your life right now, what you have achieved so far or your age. The MANformation program will help you become a better version of you—step-by-step and one strategy at a time. To learn more about the MANformation personal-development program, visit www.MANformation.com. Sign up for the free weekly e-newsletter, and you’ll get a free alpha leadership e-book.