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Influence and persuasion

Published on July 30, 2026   25 min

A selection of talks on Management, Leadership & Organisation

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0:00
My name is Dennis Tourish. I am an Emeritus Professor of Leadership and Organisational Studies at the University of Sussex. I have also authored or co-authored a number of books on leadership and communication processes within organisations, including ones that address this topic today. Our topic today is Influence and Persuasion, which I think are things that managers engage in all the time.
0:32
I begin by saying that there is a difference between influencing and persuading people. We influence other people all the time, and they do the same to us, whether it's intended or not. Our behaviour influences other people. Our example influences other people. The clothing that we wear influences other people. They might not be intending to produce an effect on them, but it happens. Persuasion, on the other hand, is when we consciously set out to change the attitudes, the feelings, or the behaviours of other people. It is much more intentional. We are doing something communication-wise in order to effect a change in other people. It's immediately obvious that the job of a manager involves both of these every single day. Think again about the nature of influence, for example, and the importance that we attach to our relationships with managers. The more senior and important the manager, the more true this is. We observe everything that they do. We even sometimes copy how they speak and how they dress. The example of the manager turns out to be a very fundamental part of influence and then ultimately also of persuasion.

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