Part of our guide on how to influence upwards

Mind the gap: even Directors rate themselves 6 out of 10

Over the past two years, more than half of the senior leaders who have joined our open influence programmes have been at Director level or above. There’s a President, a CEO, a COO and a Chief Customer Officer among them.

When we asked them, before they started, how confident they felt approaching influencing situations, the average answer was six out of ten.

That’s a striking number. These aren’t people who need to be taught what influence is. They’ve already influenced their way into senior roles. But in specific situations, most rate themselves in the middle. The pattern is remarkably consistent: they feel confident with their own teams, and less confident when the room includes more senior stakeholders, dominant personalities, or people they don’t yet know.

Confidence in influence isn’t a general trait. It shifts depending on who you’re trying to influence, and why. The same person who is unshakeable in a client pitch may quietly dread a difficult conversation with their manager. The same senior leader who commands a boardroom may struggle in a cross-functional group where they have no formal authority to fall back on.

We’ve built a short self-assessment to help you see where your gaps are.