What is ethical influence?
Influencing is the ability to shape understanding and commitment without relying only on authority. It combines credible reasoning, relevant framing, consultation, and respect for the other person’s agency.
Explore how well you build commitment through evidence, involvement, and a message that matters to the audience.
Answer as you are today
Choose the answer that best describes your recent behaviour at work. No email required.
What does ethical influence mean?
Influencing is the ability to shape understanding and commitment without relying only on authority. It combines credible reasoning, relevant framing, consultation, and respect for the other person’s agency.
Why it matters at work
Leaders rarely control every person or dependency involved in an outcome. Ethical influence helps people understand the case, contribute to the approach, and choose genuine commitment rather than temporary compliance.
What this assessment measures
Credibility & reasoning
Making a clear, evidence-based case that connects the proposal to a real problem.
Audience & meaning
Connecting the request to what the other person values, needs, or hopes to achieve.
Consultation & commitment
Involving people early enough to improve the approach and create real ownership.
How to interpret your score
Your overall result is normalised to a 0–100 scale. Use it to choose a practice area, not to compare your worth with somebody else.
Build your ethical influence foundation
Your answers suggest a few recurring situations where a simple, visible habit could make this skill more reliable.
A developing ethical influence pattern
You use this skill in some situations already. Focus on making it dependable when pressure, ambiguity, or disagreement rises.
A strong ethical influence pattern
Your answers suggest a reliable pattern. Keep testing it in harder situations and pay attention to the dimension that trails the others.
Designed for reflection, not diagnosis
The ten behaviour-based statements cover 3 practical dimensions. Responses run from “Never” to “Almost always”; negatively worded items are reverse-scored. Overall and dimension results are converted to a 0–100 scale. The assessment is educational and has not been psychometrically validated.
Read the full assessment methodology and editorial standards.
Research that informed this page
Gary Yukl and J. Bruce Tracey (1992), “Consequences of Influence Tactics Used With Subordinates, Peers, and the Boss”, Journal of Applied Psychology.