I believe there is a fine line between manipulation and influence. In my definition, manipulation would be the back ended/back door way of pushing someone towards a decision by putting direct effort into making the victim think only the presented path is correct. For influence, you would need to only state your point, and perhaps alternatives that you foresee affecting the decision, and let the person make their own conscious (critical awareness of alternatives) decision.
Unfortunately, this battle is a daily activity at work. I have been asked to get my contacts to go down a certain path because particular solutions or products are more in the company's overall interest than others. As I am pushed into specific categories of product by work, I then need to do the same with the end users. It didn't come to mind until now, but this may have become a normal process that I haven't taken much thought of. I do present some alternatives, but I know I have not done so in all situations. This may have been easier since I had not defined my core values just yet, which allowed for flexibility in decisions. It will be quite hard to continue doing this consciously when I have the LDP completed with a clearer vision of this core values.
I would be curious to the writings of Presidents that have struggled with this conflict and the ethics related to it. They have the abundantly difficult task of influencing a nation to accept a policy, a law, a decision, and the like... without always having the charm.
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