You know the feeling. You need to bring someone with you – a colleague, a client, your board, maybe even your teenager- and you have absolutely no formal authority over them. Or perhaps you do have authority, but you’re wise enough to know that wielding it bluntly will cost you more than it gains.
Influence has always been the real work of leadership. But in a world that is more complex, more uncertain, and more interconnected than ever before, the old playbook is failing. Compliance tactics, persuasion pressure, and information asymmetry might get you a short-term result, but they steadily erode the relational capital you actually need to elicit cooperative action.
So what’s the alternative?
Prosocial influence is the human-centred approach I recommend and it’s grounded in something deeper than mechanical technique. It’s based on an understanding of what human beings fundamentally need in order to feel safe enough to cooperate, contribute, and trust. We’re talking about fundamental security needs – the need to feel significant, to belong, to have some sense of autonomy and fairness in our interactions with others. When influence tactics ignore or threaten these needs, people get defensive, shut down, or quietly disengage. Prosocial influence honours these needs.
And prosocial influence works everywhere. In a leadership team navigating a high-stakes decision. In a difficult conversation with someone you manage. At home, with a partner or a child who isn’t buying what you’re selling. The context may change, but the human needs don’t.
“Prosocial influence is strategic influence, not niceness. It’s about achieving a worthwhile outcome with others in a way that honours their significance, autonomy, and long-term wellbeing, not just your immediate goals.”
The really practical news is that prosocial influence lives in micro-behaviours: small, repeatable, conscious actions that signal safety, respect, and genuine connection. Not positional power, emotional blackmail, or coercion, just the deliberate practice of a handful of behaviours that go straight to the heart of what people need in order to say yes.
A recent human-centred leadership webinar I ran on this topic for Juno Legal attracted in-house legal teams and General Counsel, but it offers value to anyone needing to influence without authority in uncertainty. In the one-hour session I walked through the background context of prosocial influence and human security needs, along with five micro-behaviours that you can put to work immediately – in any relationship, at any level.
Two things you can do to get started:
Watch the recording to learn the five prosocial influence micro-behaviours and how to start using them today, wherever influence matters most to you.
Read a summary of the session by one of the Juno Legal team members who attended the session.
