Power Play #12: Be patient

Each day entrepreneur Rose Herceg presents a how-to power tip that challenges the typical Machiavellian theories of power. This is the Power Playbook: your quick-fix guide to influencing people …in a good way.

Power Play #12: Be patient

Sounds easy. Turns out, it's very hard. Patience these days seems to have very little place in a world of instant everything.

People start getting antsy if the elevator doors close slightly slower than warp speed, so there's no telling what happens when it takes someone a little longer than it should to make their point in a meeting.

Power Players never tap their foot. They don't sigh loudly when someone is taking their time placing a food order and they NEVER look disapprovingly when someone says they need more time to make up their mind on a big decision.

Power Players worked out pretty early in the piece that patience is an incredibly beautiful human quality. And when you're patient with your colleagues they make far fewer mistakes, their responses are more thoughtful, and they feel they can relax in their working environment.

As a little kid, I remember my dad waiting for me to tie up my shoelace. It must have taken me close to twenty minutes, but he stood there patiently and waited. It occurred to me many years later that almost every other dad would have taken over the shoe tying in exasperation (and to speed up the proceedings). Not my dad. That there is what's called bona-fide patience. True power is being able to sit there and wait quietly, trusting that the person in question will get the job done in their own time.