We all know at least one such person who we think is brilliant and hardworking, but hasn’t really been able to make an impact as big as we think they can.

We all also know at least one such person who we think knows or understands little, but has made it really big in one or many fields in life.

In both my professional and personal life, I find people who are able to make others do what they want, even when their ideas are not the brightest. These are not the people who are good at influencing others. These are also not people who are often right or are visionaries. But still they are able to make people do as they say. Then what makes these not-so-influencing, not-so-visionary people lead others into doing what they say?

I feel most of us want to maintain harmony in their professional life as well as in their personal life. When a strong headed person enters our lives, they tend to disturb that harmony. To avoid disturbing the harmony, we first try to take our lives away from that person. But that is not always possible. We possibly can distance ourselves from a friend or change a job, but it may not always be possible to do that with a family member or with someone at work we can’t leave. When we can’t move away, our next comfortable instinct is to avoid conflict – and that often means aligning with what this confident strong headed person wants. No matter right or wrong. And that is what this confident strong headed person feeds on. Knowingly or unknowingly they use the intimidating power of their confidence to steam roll their ideas and decisions over even better ideas, that others can align on but are too intimidated to speak for.

This happens at a micro level, in a family, on a playground, in a corporate set up, as well as at a macro level in professions and decision making at all levels. Such people ultimately end up making the most big and small decisions that shape this world, no matter right or wrong.

It makes me feel that while we all have heard ‘be the change that you want to see’, a more practical version of it is ‘be confident in the change that you want to see’ and the rest will follow.

This is how I feel, how about you?