Throughout my career as a human resources executive and, most recently, as chief diversity officer for a Fortune 100 company, I learned one truth that shaped every initiative I ever led: If you cannot influence, you cannot create change.

It sounds simple, but it’s a lesson that took years to fully understand. Influence isn’t about authority, title, or having the final say in a meeting — it’s the ability to shift perspectives, help people see what they hadn’t seen before, and move organizations toward outcomes that matter. 

In the diversity, equity, and inclusion space, that work is especially imperative. For too long, DEI was treated as a “nice-to-have” — a feel-good moral imperative rather than a bona fide competitive advantage for the business. My job was to help companies understand that the embrace of diverse perspectives can help them outperform their peers in innovation, problem-solving, and market responsiveness. 

But, as I learned, you don’t get people to that conclusion by lecturing them. Effective influence means meeting people where they are and helping them arrive at the insight themselves.

Looking back, I see three levers I’ve returned to again and again:

  1. Emotion: Understanding what moves people in order to better connect abstract ideas to their own lives and values.
  2. Data: Grounding conversations in evidence, then humanizing the numbers with stories.
  3. Relationships: Doing the work to build relationships before a critical decision is on the table and then using that rapport to help leaders respond thoughtfully rather than reactively.

Understanding what moves people

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that effective influence starts with understanding what keeps people up at night. Everyone has priorities, fears, and pressures that drive their decisions. If you want to move someone, you have to first understand what moves them.

Early in my tenure as a CDO, I met with a leader who worked in mergers and acquisitions. He was polite but skeptical. He didn’t see what diversity, equity, and inclusion had to do with his work, which was deals, numbers, and integration plans.

While he finished a phone call, I looked around his office. On his desk sat a photo of his wife, his daughter, and a young man I assumed was his daughter’s fiancé. When he hung up, I asked about the picture. His face lit up as he told me about his daughter’s engagement, about how excited the family was.

I asked him a simple question: “What do you know about your future in-laws? Their faith? Their political views? Their beliefs about the things that matter most to you and your wife?”

He paused.

“Your grandchildren are going to grow up in a household that might be very different from how you raised your daughter,” I continued. “Before you bring someone into your family, you want to understand who they are.”

Then I brought it back to M&A: “It’s the same when we bring a company into our family. Before we close a deal, we need to know who we’re really acquiring. Are there lawsuits or class actions? Cultural issues that could become our problems? Diversity, equity and inclusion due diligence isn’t separate from the deal, it is the deal.”

He got it. In that moment, the abstract became personal, and suddenly it mattered in the decisions he was responsible for. 

That’s the power of emotion as a lever of influence — of understanding another person’s perspective well enough to connect what matters to you to what already matters to them.

Let the data speak

Emotion can open doors, but the evidence is what allows an idea to withstand scrutiny. When I sit down with senior leaders, I begin with the data, allowing the numbers to tell the story first. Data is objective; it doesn’t have an agenda, it simply reveals what is.

But data alone isn’t enough — numbers on a slide can feel distant, even cold. They can help describe what is happening, but can’t help senior leaders understand how it feels to the people experiencing it. 

That’s why, after presenting the data, I bring the human element in: stories from employees, perspectives from the front lines, voices that put a face to the statistics. Only then do I move on to solutions.

This sequence matters: data, human storytelling, then recommendations. It’s a structure that respects leaders’ analytical instincts while also engaging their empathy. It leads them to conclusions they feel ownership over, rather than conclusions that feel imposed.

Build trust over time

Although empathy and evidence are powerful tools, true influence depends upon trust. The most consequential conversations I have with leaders rarely begin in the moment when a major decision has to be made. Far more often, they are enabled by an existing relationship that has been fostered over time: listening without judgement, offering honest counsel, and repeatedly demonstrating care for the success of the organization.

It is trust that enables leaders to come to me with questions that they might otherwise be reluctant to ask publicly. During the height of the MeToo movement, a male leader came to me privately and told me he was considering stepping back from mentoring women because he was afraid of being falsely accused of misconduct.

I understood his fear, which was real and being echoed in conversations across corporate America. But I also knew that stepping back would be a mistake for him, for the women he mentored, and for the organization.

I told him that the risk he feared was statistically unlikely, but the risk of abandoning mentorship was certain: Talented women would lose access to guidance, sponsorship, and opportunity. I encouraged him to take sensible precautions, meet in open spaces, keep communication professional, but not to let fear stop him from doing something critically important.

He listened. He kept mentoring. And years later, several of the women he championed have moved into leadership roles.

That conversation happened because we had built trust over time. That trust gave us room to discuss fears, assumptions, and disagreements candidly, and it allowed me to challenge someone’s thinking without making that person feel dismissed or condemned.

Influence isn’t a soft skill — it’s a strategic capability. Building and wielding it requires patience, preparation, and genuine curiosity about the people you’re trying to reach. It’s the difference between ideas that stay on whiteboards and ideas that change organizations.

So invest in it. Study the people around you with genuine curiosity. Listen closely enough to understand their priorities. Build relationships before you need to draw on them. And never underestimate the power of meeting someone exactly where they are and walking with them toward where they need to be.

That’s influence. And it’s the most important currency you’ll ever earn.