How Do I Position Myself to Influence Senior Leadership?

Coaching Real Leaders

Harvard Business Review / Muriel Wilkins

Executive, Business/careers, Leadership, Careers, Business/management, Sessions, Hbr, Coaching, Review, Society & Culture, C-suite, Leaders, Harvard, Business, Management

4.8 • 660 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He’s a leader who took a role at an organization where he can expand his area of expertise and make more of a strategic impact. But he’s getting mixed signals from leadership on how to grow the company, and he’s wondering how to stay effective in influencing the senior team without burning out in the process. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him on how to clear the path ahead.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Muriel Wilkins and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBRR podcast network.
0:13.3	I'm a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who've hit a bump in the road.
0:18.8	My job is to help them get over that bump by
0:21.7	clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that hopefully they can lead with a
0:26.3	little more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show,
0:32.1	we have a one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they're facing.
0:46.8	Today's guest is someone will call Braden to protect his confidentiality.
0:52.9	Like many leaders, he's landed in his current position through a bit of a winding path, starting in the tech sector, then going on his own,
0:56.0	and then taking another turn into his current strategic leadership role.
1:00.0	I ended up doing some work on contract for a client, and we went from having a very transactional relationship
1:08.0	to one where I was invited to actually be working with their owners, executives,
1:13.6	leaders all the way down at more of a strategic level, trying to understand how things that I
1:20.6	could deploy might help them strategically, competitively. My role has continued to expand into that strategic level.
1:30.1	And my job title changed as a result of that.
1:33.2	And my day to day now is a weird mix of things that take you all the way from kind of that
1:38.2	30,000 foot strategic level, advising, counseling, coaching, our ownership, executive level, senior leadership,
1:46.4	on strategic decisions, managing what we would call our strategic plan, which is a living
1:52.0	and breathing document, a set of commitments that we've made and a system whereby we can track
1:57.2	our progress toward those commitments. But also, I've carried all of that IT stuff with me.
2:02.9	In making the leap from Solopreneur back into the corporate world, Brayden was motivated by a few things.
2:09.4	I really felt a sense of ownership over what we had built. We've done some things that no other
2:14.3	organization in our field is doing, and that's really exciting. I do feel kind of like
	...

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