What Do You Really Want From Them?
The Difference Between Forcing, Influencing, Motivating, Inspiring, Building Relationships and Developing People
A surprisingly large number of coaching goals are not really about the client. They are about someone else.
- I want to motivate my son.
- I need to influence my clients.
- I want to inspire people.
- I need this team member to take more responsibility.
- I want to improve my relationship with my partner.
- I want to help this person develop.
These may sound like different coaching topics. But they all contain the same hidden requirement:
Someone else needs to do something.
To understand how leaders influence behavior, we first need to become precise about what we actually want from other people.
The client wants another person to act, change, understand, contribute, take responsibility or move in a particular direction. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Leadership happens through other people. Parenting happens in relationship with other people. Organizations cannot function without people affecting one another.
The problem begins when we use different words for what is essentially the same unspoken wish: I want this person to behave differently. And then fail to clarify how we want that change to happen. Because forcing, influencing, motivating, inspiring, building a relationship and developing someone are not interchangeable…
- They require different interactions.
- They use power differently.
- And they leave the other person with very different degrees of freedom.
When clients say they want someone else to change, coaches often begin exploring communication techniques, leadership styles or possible actions. But perhaps we are moving too quickly. Before asking how, we need to understand what and why.
These are six very different intentions. Being honest about which one we have changes the entire conversation.
Forcing
Sometimes we need to force someone to do something. The intention is direct:
I need you to do this, whether you want to or not.
We use formal authority, rules, consequences or positional power. The other person’s agreement is not required. Their action is. That does not automatically make forcing wrong. If a house is burning, a firefighter does not ask whether people feel motivated to leave. There is no time to inspire them, build consensus or explore what moving toward the exit means to them personally. The firefighter gives an instruction. And expects it to be followed.
The same principle applies when safety is at risk, a legal requirement must be respected, a crisis demands immediate coordination or a decision genuinely cannot be negotiated. In such situations, preserving freedom of choice may be less responsible than temporarily removing it. The ethical question is:
“Was removing that choice truly necessary, proportionate and transparent?”
Forcing becomes problematic when we use it for our convenience rather than genuine necessity. If there is no real choice, it may be more respectful to say so clearly. Force is not inherently wrong. But it should know when its work is finished.
Influencing
Influence is different. Here, the other person still has a choice but we have a preferred outcome. We want them to see the situation in a particular way, accept an idea or take an action that we consider desirable. In its most transparent form, influence says:
I know what I would like you to choose, and I will try to move you in that direction.
Influence can be ethical, open and respectful. It can also become subtle manipulation. The uncomfortable distinction is often whether the other person understands that we are trying to shape their decision. When managers say, “I want them to take ownership,” they sometimes mean:
“I want them to choose exactly what I have already decided—but I want them to feel that it was their idea.”
That is not ownership. It is compliance with better packaging.
Motivating
When we want to motivate someone, we are trying to activate a reason for action.
- Perhaps the person already cares about the outcome but has lost energy.
- Perhaps they cannot see why the task matters.
- Perhaps they need recognition, challenge, security, belonging or a clearer connection between effort and reward.
Motivation asks:
What could make this action worth taking for you?
The action may still serve our objective, but the energy needs to connect with something meaningful to the other person. That is why motivation cannot be reduced to enthusiasm, encouragement or a motivational speech.
- We may provide incentives.
- We may remove obstacles.
- We may help someone reconnect with a purpose.
But we cannot simply insert motivation into another human being. At best, we can create conditions in which their motivation becomes more available.
Inspiring
Inspiration is even less controllable. We do something, embody something or communicate a possibility and another person becomes moved by it.
- They may see a future they could not see before.
- They may reconnect with courage, ambition or hope.
- They may decide to act.
But here is the important part:
Inspiration does not guarantee that they will take the action we want.
If I inspire you only when your response serves my objective, I may not be trying to inspire you at all. I may be trying to influence you through an inspiring story. True inspiration opens possibility. It does not own the direction in which another person moves.
Building a Relationship
Sometimes the desired outcome cannot be produced through pressure, persuasion or individual motivation. It requires a different quality of relationship.
- More trust.
- More openness.
- More psychological safety.
- More willingness to hear one another and work through disagreement.
Here the intention becomes:
What do we need to create between us so that we can move forward together?
The difference is significant. The other person is no longer merely the object of our leadership action. They become a participant in shaping what happens next. But relationship-building can also be misnamed. If we invest in a relationship only to make someone more likely to accept what we already want, we are still influencing. We are simply using warmth instead of pressure.
Developing Someone
Development moves the ownership even further. When we genuinely want to develop another person, our primary goal is not to secure one particular action. It is to expand their awareness, capability and capacity to choose. We may challenge them. Offer feedback. Ask difficult questions.
But what they do with that understanding belongs to them.
And this is where development becomes demanding for leaders, parents and coaches.
The person may grow and still make a decision we do not prefer.
If we support their development only for as long as their conclusions match ours, we are not really developing them. We are influencing them through the language of development.
Why This Distinction Matters in Coaching
When a client says, “I want to motivate my team,” the coach should not immediately begin generating motivational strategies. First, we need greater precision.
- What do you want team members to do?
- Why do you want them to do it?
- Is the action negotiable?
- Do they have a genuine choice?
- Whose goal is it?
- What happens if they understand you perfectly and still choose differently?
- Are you trying to produce compliance, influence a decision, activate motivation, offer inspiration, strengthen the relationship or support development?
Until we clarify this, we risk solving the wrong problem.
- We may offer coaching tools for a situation that requires direct leadership.
- We may talk about motivation when the real issue is accountability.
- We may describe influence as inspiration.
- We may call obedience commitment.
- Or we may claim that we want to develop someone when what we actually want is for them to agree with us.
Precise language does not automatically make our intention good. But it makes it visible. And only then can we take responsibility for it.
The clearer we become about what we truly want, the less likely we are to hide control behind the language of motivation, influence behind the language of inspiration, or our own agenda behind the language of someone else’s development.
Written by Pedja Jovanović
Pedja Jovanović is the Founder of Atria Group International and Co-creator of My Identity Journey and My Leadership Journey. He works internationally with senior leaders, founders, and executive teams navigating growth, complexity, and transformation, combining cognitive, embodied, and intuitive approaches to leadership development.
