Can somone please put into layman's terms how a TF affects a Bode diagram?
A transfer function is a complex valued function relating the output of a system to its input. It is complex-valued because \$s\$ is a complex variable.

A complex number (the value of the transfer function at some frequency or for some \$s\$) can be expressed as either a real part and an imaginary part, or as a magnitude and a phase. 

When making a Bode plot we use the magnitude-phase representation, not the real and imaginary representation. The phase plot in a Bode plot presents the phase of the transfer function as a function of frequency (for \$s=j\omega\$ if you're working in the Laplace domain).

So the transfer function doesn't "affect" the phase. It has a phase, and the Bode phase plot is way of showing how that phase varies with frequency, just like the magnitude lot shows how the magnitude varies with frequency.