Circle of
Influence

ASSESSMENT & DISCOVERY TOOLS

Map the gap between where you spend energy
and where you have actual leverage.

Where This Tool Helps

Most leaders can tell you what they control and what they don't. What they can't usually tell you is how much time they spend on the things they don't. This tool makes that ratio visible.

The three circles - Control, Influence, Concern - look simple. The sorting itself is where the work happens. Items that feel like they belong in Control often belong in Influence once you examine them honestly. Things parked in Concern ("that's not my problem") sometimes sit closer to your circle of Influence than you've acknowledged. And the items consuming the most mental energy are frequently the ones farthest from your ability to affect them. Leaders who run teams, manage budgets, and own strategy still lose hours each week to factors they cannot change and have not decided to stop worrying about.

The exercise below is designed to make those misplacements concrete - so you can redirect attention toward the circles where your effort actually moves something.

How to Use This Worksheet

  1. Choose a specific context. "My role" is too broad. Pick a current challenge, a project, a transition, or a relationship where you feel stretched. The tighter the scope, the more honest the sorting becomes.
  2. Start with the outer ring - Concern. List everything weighing on you within this context, including things you know you cannot change. Market conditions, other people's decisions, organizational politics, industry shifts. Get it all down first.
  3. Move inward to Influence. From your Concern list, pull anything you can shape indirectly - through relationships, persuasion, coalition-building, or positioning. These are factors where your actions change the probability of an outcome, even if you don't own the outcome.
  4. Finish with Control. What do you directly decide? Your own behavior, your priorities, how you spend your time, what you say yes and no to. This circle is usually smaller than people expect.
  5. Step back and look at the distribution. Where is most of your list? Where is most of your energy? If those two answers don't match, that's the finding.
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Circle of Influence

Circle of Control

What you directly decide - your actions, your responses, your priorities, how you spend your time.

Circle of Influence

What you can shape indirectly - through relationships, input, persuasion, or how you show up.

Circle of Concern

What affects you but sits outside your direct ability to change - market forces, other people's choices, organizational decisions above your level.

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Where Is Your Energy?

Look at the three lists above. Where have you spent the most time and mental energy this week? Mark those items. Does your energy match your leverage?

Reflection

Before Your Next Session

Now that you can see it:

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