How to influence upwards
Every year, we ask leaders coming onto our programmes to name the influencing situation they find hardest. The answers vary in their detail, but the pattern doesn’t. Influencing upwards is the challenge that comes back more than any other.
It’s the situation with the highest stakes and the least practice time. You get five minutes with a director, one shot at the board paper, one meeting with your line manager where you actually need them to say yes, and unlike most of the influencing you do day to day, there’s no reset button. If it doesn’t land, you often don’t get to try again for weeks.
What surprises people is that this doesn’t get easier at the top. Directors, Heads of Function and C-suite leaders name upward influence just as often as anyone else, because every level of seniority comes with another one above it, and the confidence that carried you through your last set of meetings doesn’t automatically carry over to the next.
Even senior leaders rate their own confidence as average
Over the past two years, more than half of the senior leaders who’ve joined our open influence programmes have come in at Director level or above. Before they start, we ask how confident they feel approaching influencing situations generally, and the average answer is six out of ten.
That isn’t a lack of skill. These are people who have already influenced their way into senior roles. What it points to is that confidence in influence isn’t a fixed trait but something that shifts depending on who you’re trying to influence and why. The same person who’s unshakeable in a client pitch can dread a difficult conversation with their own manager, and the moment someone more senior walks into the room, everything about that room changes, no matter how senior you already are.
We cover what’s really driving that gap, and what changes it, in The leadership confidence gap.
Curious where your own biggest gap sits? Our free two-minute self-assessment covers six common influencing situations and ends with two tips personalised to you.
How to sound confident, not rude
The instinct, under pressure, is to over-explain. To add ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’. To soften a clear ask into something that sounds more like a suggestion, in case it lands badly. It rarely helps. Senior stakeholders don’t have time for twenty disclaimers, and a hedged idea is a harder idea to say yes to, because it isn’t clear what you’re actually asking for.
Being direct with someone senior isn’t the same as being aggressive. Clarity is a form of respect for their time, and it’s usually what earns you more of it next time.
We break down exactly how to do this, including the specific language patterns to watch for and swap out, in Using assertive language.
Facing the big moment
Once the language is right, there’s still the moment itself: walking in, making the case, and not losing your nerve halfway through.
People who do this well have already pictured it from the other side, asking themselves what a senior stakeholder actually wants from the five minutes they’ve given you. What they usually want isn’t caveats or hedged suggestions, it’s a clear, confident proposal they can say yes to quickly.
We walk through exactly how to prepare for, and hold your nerve in, that kind of conversation in 5 minutes with a Director.
Build the skill
Influencing upwards is learnable. It isn’t charisma or a personality trait some people are born with and others aren’t, but a specific, practised skill, the same as any other. The senior leaders who join our programmes prove this every year, arriving as people demonstrably excellent at their jobs who still rate themselves in the middle on confidence, and leaving with a measurable shift.
We run open programmes throughout the year, in 3-day face-to-face and 12-session virtual formats, built around exactly this kind of situation. If influencing upwards is where your own gap sits, we’d love to hear from you.
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