Your Role Says "Leader"

But Do You Actually Influence Anything That Matters?

You can run the forecast, manage margin, and write the playbook, yet still be left out of the conversations that move revenue forward.

• Respected but ignored
• In the room but not in the loop
• Accountable for outcomes you did not shape

Influence is often mistaken for visibility.

Real influence shows in the weight your thinking carries, especially when you're not in the room.

It is hard to measure. This diagnostic helps you see where your influence is strong and where it may be fading.

UPSTREAM TRUST

Influence before decisions get made

• Which decisions impact your work but happen without you
• Who reaches out when they are framing, not finalizing
• Are you looped in early because of trust or routine

If sales, ops, or marketing are informed after decisions are set, it signals a lack of trust in their ability to shape the outcome.

Ask "What decisions are you wrestling with?" instead of "What do you need from me?"

VALUE FRAMING

Influence over how your role is understood

• Are you introduced by your function or by your impact
• Do you define what your work changes or just what it produces
• Can others explain your value without a dashboard

There is a difference between "she runs pricing" and "she identified the price-volume mix that was quietly eroding our gross margin." One shapes strategy. The other reviews spreadsheets.

Your influence grows when people can connect your work to consequences without needing you to explain it.

LATERAL ALIGNMENT

Influence across friction zones

• Who depends on you quietly, even if they outrank you
• Which teams would drift if you stopped showing up
• Are you seen as a blocker, a bridge, or a buffer

Strategy rarely fails in theory. Execution falters in the seams between finance and sales, product and ops, pricing and channel. The people who hold those seams often shape more than their title suggests.

If this is your gap, map the breakdowns and become the translator others rely on.

SIGNAL STRENGTH

Influence when you are not in the room

• Do others reference your thinking or just your title
• Does your work scale through others or stall at your calendar
• What travels further: your presence or your perspective

If your frameworks or language are being reused without attribution, that is a win. Influence that spreads does not require reminders.

Shape ideas others can use without you. That is how thinking becomes influence.

Influence is not who listens when you speak.

It is what continues to shape decisions after you stop talking.

Scoring

• 9 to 12: You have leverage
• 5 to 8: You have influence in pockets
• Under 5: You are in logistics mode

Influence lives in the systems and choices that continue without you.

Where is your influence strongest, and where is it no longer felt?