Beyond Buy-In: How Executive Leaders Turn Agreement into Lasting Commitment (influence series 4/4)

Influence gets you in the room. It gets heads nodding and hands raised. What it doesn't automatically get you is the thing that actually matters: sustained commitment — the kind that survives the next competing priority, the next reorg, the next moment when following through becomes inconvenient.

That gap between buy-in and commitment is where most organizational initiatives quietly die. And closing it requires a different set of disciplines than the ones that opened the door.

This final article is about what happens after the influence moment — how senior leaders convert agreement into action, and action into lasting organizational change.

Why Buy-In Isn't Enough

At the executive level, buy-in is often performative. People nod in meetings. They express support in the room and raise concerns in the hallway. They commit to timelines they don't believe in and resource allocations they never intended to honor. This isn't cynicism — it's organizational physics. People are managing competing demands, protecting their teams, and navigating their own political realities. A yes in a meeting is a starting point, not a finish line.

John Kotter's decades of research on large-scale change offers a sobering finding: the majority of change initiatives fail not because the strategy was wrong, but because the coalition behind it was too thin, too senior, or too disconnected from the people who had to execute. Real commitment isn't secured in a single conversation — it's built through a sustained process of enrollment, co-creation, and follow-through.

Strategies for Securing Lasting Commitment

1. Build a coalition, not just a consensus. There is a meaningful difference between a room full of people who have agreed and a coalition of leaders who are actively invested. Consensus is passive — it means nobody objected strongly enough to stop the initiative. Coalition is active — it means specific people have staked their credibility on the outcome and will advocate for it when you're not in the room.

At the executive level, building a real coalition means identifying who carries informal authority across the organization — not just who has the title — and bringing them in early enough that they feel genuine ownership. Herminia Ibarra's research on leadership and networks reinforces this: the most effective senior leaders build diverse coalitions that span organizational boundaries, not just deep relationships within their own function. The person who unlocks a stalled initiative is often someone three degrees removed from where you've been investing your influence energy.

2. Co-create rather than cascade. The fastest way to convert buy-in into commitment is to give people a genuine role in shaping what they're committing to. This isn't about designing by committee — it's about the difference between presenting a finished solution and inviting serious engagement with an important problem.

When stakeholders have contributed to the shape of an initiative — when their concerns have visibly influenced the design, when their expertise has been drawn on, when they can point to something in the final approach and say that was my idea — their commitment to the outcome is qualitatively different. They're not implementing someone else's decision. They're executing their own.

The discipline here is knowing how much is genuinely open for input and being honest about it. Inviting co-creation on things that have already been decided is more corrosive to trust than not asking at all.

3. Make the invisible cost of inaction visible. One of the most underused commitment strategies at the executive level is the honest articulation of what it costs to do nothing. Leaders spend enormous energy making the case for their initiative — its benefits, its potential, its strategic fit. Far less energy goes into making the cost of inaction real and specific.

What market position do we lose if we don't move on this now? What talent do we fail to retain? What competitive window closes? What problem compounds? When the cost of the status quo is as vivid as the promise of the proposed change, the decision calculus shifts — and so does the urgency behind the commitment.

4. Address the loss, not just the gain. William Bridges' work on transitions, introduced in Article 1, is as relevant to securing commitment as it is to understanding resistance. People don't just weigh the potential upside of a change — they weigh what they stand to lose. Status, autonomy, familiar routines, relationships, identity. These losses are real, and when they go unacknowledged, they become the invisible force that erodes commitment after the meeting ends.

The executives who secure the deepest commitment are the ones who name the losses explicitly — who say, in effect, I know this asks something real of you, and I want to acknowledge that — before making the case for why it's worth it. That acknowledgment doesn't weaken your position. It builds the trust that makes commitment possible.

5. Follow through with the same energy you brought to the ask. Nothing destroys organizational commitment faster than a leader who secured buy-in and then disappeared. The follow-through — the check-ins, the removal of obstacles, the public acknowledgment of progress, the honest conversation when things aren't working — is not administrative overhead. It is the influence work continuing.

The most credible executive sponsors I've observed treat their commitment to an initiative the same way they treat their commitment to a person: consistently, visibly, and especially when it's inconvenient. That consistency is what transforms a moment of agreement into a sustained organizational movement.

6. Create feedback loops that surface reality early. Commitment erodes silently. By the time resistance becomes visible — missed deadlines, quiet disengagement, hallway conversations that contradict room conversations — it has usually been building for weeks. The leaders who catch this early build deliberate feedback mechanisms: not formal surveys or quarterly reviews, but regular, informal conversations with people close enough to the work to tell them the truth.

Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety is directly relevant here: people will only surface early warning signals if they believe it's safe to do so. Creating the conditions for honest feedback isn't just good culture practice — it's a commitment protection strategy. The earlier you know commitment is slipping, the more options you have to address it.

The Long Game

Influence is ultimately a long game. The tactics in this series — the groundwork, the communication disciplines, the persuasion principles, the commitment strategies — are most powerful when they're not deployed as isolated techniques but practiced as a consistent way of leading.

The executives who move organizations aren't necessarily the most charismatic or the most politically savvy. They're the ones who have built enough trust, over enough time, with enough people, that when they ask others to move — others move. Not because they have to. Because they want to.

That kind of influence isn't engineered in a single meeting or a single series of articles. It's built conversation by conversation, commitment by commitment, over the course of a career.

But it starts with deciding to take it seriously. And that decision — that's yours to make.

Reflection Question: Think about a commitment you've secured recently that didn't hold. Where did it slip — in the coalition, the co-creation, the follow-through, or the feedback? What would you do differently? Comment and share below; we'd love to hear from you.

Quote: "Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge." — Simon Sinek

As an executive leadership and team coach, I work with senior leaders to strengthen their influence, build high-performing teams, and navigate complex organizational dynamics. Contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you get buy-in?

The Science of Persuasion: What Every Executive Needs to Know About How People Are Influenced ( Influence Series 3/4)

Articles 1 and 2 focused on the foundation and the communication dynamics of influence. This article goes deeper — into the science of why people say yes.

In the 1980s, Robert Cialdini, an Arizona State University psychologist, spent years embedding himself in the world's most effective persuaders — salespeople, negotiators, fundraisers, advertisers — to understand what actually moves human behavior. What emerged was one of the most replicated and cited bodies of research in social psychology: seven principles of influence that operate across cultures, industries, and contexts. They are not tricks. They are hard-wired human tendencies that show up whether we're aware of them or not.

For executives, that last point matters enormously. These principles are already operating in every stakeholder conversation, every board presentation, every cross-functional negotiation you're in. The question isn't whether they're at work — it's whether you're using them intentionally, and whether you're using them well.

A word before we begin: every principle in this article can be used to genuinely serve others or to manipulate them. The line between the two is authenticity — whether what you're doing reflects what you actually believe and genuinely serves the people you're trying to move. The most effective executives I know deploy these principles with that ethical clarity intact. It's what makes their influence durable.

The Seven Principles

1. Reciprocity. We are wired to return favors. When someone does something for us, we feel a genuine pull to give something back — and that pull is remarkably persistent. In organizational life, this means that the leaders who consistently generate goodwill — sharing credit, advancing others' initiatives, offering help before it's asked — build an invisible reservoir of influence that pays dividends long after the original gesture.

The ethical line here is worth naming clearly. Reciprocity becomes manipulation the moment it becomes transactional — when you do something for someone specifically to engineer an obligation. If you're helping in order to get, rather than helping because it's the right thing to do, you've crossed from influence into manipulation. The difference is detectable. People at the senior level have finely tuned radar for transactional generosity. Genuine reciprocity, by contrast, compounds over time.

Practically: invest in others' priorities consistently, without keeping score. The influence that generates is real — and it arrives when you need it most.

2. Commitment and Consistency. Once people take a position or make a commitment, they are strongly motivated to behave consistently with it. This isn't stubbornness — it's a deep human need for coherence between what we say and what we do.

For executives, this principle has two applications. The first is internal: open important meetings by anchoring the group in shared identity. Simply beginning a meeting by having someone articulate the team's core values — we are customer obsessed, we lead with data, we move fast — meaningfully increases the likelihood that decisions made in that meeting will reflect those values. Identity stated becomes identity enacted.

The second application is in influencing others: when building a case for change, connect your proposal explicitly to decisions the organization has already made, values it has already declared, and directions it has already committed to. You're not asking people to do something new — you're showing them that what you're proposing is consistent with who they've already said they are.

3. Social Proof. In conditions of uncertainty, people look to the behavior of others to determine the right course of action. The more similar those others are to them, the more powerful the signal.

At the executive level, social proof is most effective when it's specific and proximate. Citing what a respected internal leader has already endorsed carries more weight than abstract industry data. Referencing what comparable organizations have done — particularly ones your audience respects — moves people more than general best practice claims. An illustration of how language precision matters here: "please complete this survey" generates significantly lower compliance than "90% of people like you have already completed this survey." The principle is the same; the framing is everything.

One caution: social proof can work against you just as easily as for you. Normalizing a problem — nobody around here follows the process — gives people license to perpetuate it. Be as intentional about the norms you're reinforcing as the ones you're trying to establish.

4. Authority. People defer to credible experts. At the executive level, where everyone in the room has significant credentials, authority is established less by title and more by demonstrated judgment, intellectual rigor, and — counterintuitively — the willingness to acknowledge the limits of what you know.

When you define the boundaries of your expertise clearly — when you say this is what I know well, and this is where I'm less certain — people trust your expertise more, not less. Intellectual honesty signals that when you do speak with confidence, it means something. Executives who project certainty about everything are trusted about nothing.

Practically: cite your sources, reference your experience specifically rather than generally, and name what you don't know before someone else does.

5. Liking. We are more easily influenced by people we like — and we like people who seem genuinely similar to us, who show authentic interest in us, and who make us feel seen. This principle is both the most intuitive and the most underutilized at the senior level, where many executives mistake professional distance for credibility.

Three things make people feel genuinely liked and therefore more open: being listened to carefully, being asked for their opinion, and sensing that you're learning from them. None of these require warmth as a personality trait — they require attention as a discipline. Ask better questions. Follow up on what people tell you. Remember what matters to them. That investment in genuine connection is not soft relationship management — it is one of the most reliable influence accelerants available to a senior leader.

6. Scarcity. We assign more value to things we perceive as rare or diminishing. Limited availability creates urgency — and urgency moves people from consideration to action.

The executive application of scarcity is more nuanced than "create urgency around deadlines." A reframe that is immediately practical: your time and attention are genuinely scarce resources, and how you signal that shapes how others value engagement with you. A leader who says "I can meet anytime" inadvertently signals low demand. A leader who says "I have Thursday at 1:30 — does that work?" signals that their time is worth something.

More substantively: when building a case for action, the most effective scarcity framing isn't artificial urgency — it's a genuine answer to the question what do we lose if we don't act now? Opportunity cost, competitive window, organizational momentum — these are real scarcities that move senior decision-makers far more than manufactured deadlines.

The ethical line: scarcity deployed honestly is influence. Scarcity manufactured artificially — false deadlines, invented constraints — violates the authenticity that makes trust possible and will, at the senior level, eventually cost you credibility.

7. Unity. Added to Cialdini's original six, unity is perhaps the most powerful principle operating in organizational life. We are most influenced by people we consider part of our in-group — our tribe, our team, our shared identity. The stronger the sense of "we," the more naturally influence flows.

For executives, unity isn't about manufacturing artificial camaraderie. It's about genuinely investing in shared identity — finding the common purpose, the shared history, the collective stake in an outcome — and making it explicit. When people feel they are part of something together, they make decisions differently. They take risks for each other they wouldn't take alone. They give the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous situations.

This is why culture is ultimately an influence system. Leaders who build strong cultures aren't just creating pleasant workplaces — they're building the conditions under which influence becomes effortless, because everyone is already oriented toward the same things.

Using These Principles Well

Cialdini's research is descriptive — it tells us how humans actually work. What it doesn't tell us is how to work with that knowledge responsibly. That's a leadership question, not a psychology question.

The executives I most respect use these principles the way a skilled physician uses pharmacology: with precise intent, genuine care for the person in front of them, and a clear sense of what they would never do. They know the difference between activating reciprocity because they've genuinely invested in a relationship and manufacturing it to create obligation. They know the difference between honest scarcity and false urgency. They know that social proof deployed cynically — to normalize mediocrity or manufacture consensus — corrodes the culture they're trying to build.

Influence at the top is consequential. It shapes decisions, careers, and organizational direction. That's exactly why it deserves to be practiced with both rigor and integrity.

Reflection Question: Which of these seven principles do you use most naturally — and which one are you leaving on the table? What would shift if you deployed it more intentionally? Comment and share below; we'd love to hear from you.

Quote: "The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity." — Zig Ziglar

As an executive leadership and team coach, I work with senior leaders to sharpen their influence and navigate complex organizational dynamics. Contact me to explore this topic further.

The next article in this series (4/4) explores how to convert influence into lasting organizational commitment.

What’s your favorite approach to influence?

Influence in Action: How Senior Leaders Mobilize People in the Room (Influence Series 2/4)

Most executives overprepare the content and underprepare the conversation. They know their material cold. What they haven't thought through is how to open, how to frame, when to ask instead of tell, and what to do when the room pushes back. That gap — between a strong idea and a strong influence moment — is what this article addresses.

Strategies for Influence in Action

1. Lead with the point, not the buildup. Most leaders — even experienced ones — default to building context first: they walk through the background, layer in the evidence, and arrive at the point at the end. It feels thorough. To a busy executive audience, it reads as uncertain.

Barbara Minto, whose Pyramid Principle became the communication backbone of McKinsey and remains one of the most influential frameworks in executive communication, argued the opposite: lead with the conclusion, then support it. In a senior meeting, you may get interrupted, redirected, or pulled into a side conversation before you finish. If your point comes last, it may never land. If it comes first, at minimum it's been heard — and everything that follows strengthens it. Start with your recommendation, your ask, or your position. Then give them the two or three most compelling reasons. Your audience doesn't need the full story to engage — they need a clear signal of where you stand and why.

2. Match your approach to the audience and the moment. Influence is not one-size-fits-all, and at the executive level the stakes of misreading the room are higher. Three orientations are worth knowing:

When working cross-functionally with peers who have competing priorities, a bridging approach — building coalitions, making selective concessions, finding the shared win — is usually more effective than asserting your position. When you're in a crisis and decisive action is needed, an asserting approach signals confidence and clarity. When you're influencing a data-driven leader — a CFO, a COO, a board member — a convincing approach anchored in logic, evidence, and expertise is what earns credibility. The executives who influence well have all three in their toolkit and know which one the moment calls for.

3. Ask and enroll rather than tell. One of the most common influence mistakes I see at the senior level is arriving with the answer. It signals confidence but closes down collaboration — and it puts people in the position of evaluating your solution rather than co-creating one.

A client of mine — a SVP at a large media company — learned this the hard way. He walked into a senior leadership meeting with a fully formed proposal for a new operating model, backed by months of research. The room pushed back immediately. Not because the idea was wrong, but because the other leaders felt they were being presented a verdict rather than invited into a conversation. When he brought the same idea back two weeks later as a set of observations and questions — what are you seeing in your teams? what's working, what isn't? how might we design something better together? — the dynamic shifted entirely. The proposal that emerged was stronger, and it had co-owners.

Asking isn't weakness. At the executive level, it's one of the most sophisticated influence moves available.

4. Define the win — and make it shared. It's one thing to articulate what you want. It's another to define what success looks like for everyone in the room. Adam Grant's research on influence points to a consistent finding: appeals to shared purpose and collective benefit are more durable than appeals to individual interest. The framing that moves people isn't "here's what I need" — it's "here's what we all stand to gain, and here's what it costs us if we don't act."

A useful discipline: before any significant influence moment, map the win three ways. How does the company win? How does the other team or stakeholder win? How does your team win? If you can't answer all three, the proposal isn't ready. And if you can, you've just built your most compelling argument.

5. Speak in "we," not "I." Language signals intent. "I need you to prioritize this" frames the conversation as a transaction. "We have an opportunity to solve this together" frames it as a partnership. At the executive level, where zero-sum dynamics are always lurking beneath the surface, inclusive language is a deliberate choice — not a soft one. It signals that you're optimizing for the outcome, not the credit.

6. Control the frame before someone else does. Whoever sets the context shapes how everything that follows gets interpreted. Walking into a room without a clear frame means someone else will provide one — and it may not serve you. Strong executive communicators set the perspective early: here's what we're solving for, here's why it matters now, here's how I'd like us to think about it together. That framing does more influence work than most of the content that follows it.

7. Lead with evidence, but don't hide behind it. Data is necessary but not sufficient. At the executive level, decision-makers expect evidence — but they're also evaluating your judgment about which evidence matters and what it means. Citing relevant research, referencing industry benchmarks, or pointing to what trusted internal leaders have already endorsed all strengthen credibility. One client navigating a difficult restructuring found that benchmarking her proposal against industry norms — realizing her recommendation was actually more conservative than what peers at comparable organizations had done — gave her the confidence to advocate more clearly and made the case easier to land.

Frei's insight on authority is worth holding here: when you're clear about the boundaries of what you know — and honest about what you don't — people trust your expertise more, not less. Intellectual humility amplifies credibility at the senior level.

8. Tell a story that makes the data human. Numbers inform. Stories move. The most persuasive executive communicators know that a well-placed narrative — specific, concrete, emotionally resonant — does something data alone cannot: it makes the stakes real. When you can connect your argument to a customer whose experience changed, a team whose performance shifted, or a moment where the cost of inaction became visible, you've given your audience something to carry out of the room with them.

9. Surface disagreements — don't manage around them. This is where many senior leaders lose influence they've worked hard to build. When you sense resistance, the instinct is often to push harder or find a workaround. The more effective move is to name the disagreement directly and get curious about its source.

Three questions that consistently unlock stalled conversations: What are we optimizing for? (misaligned goals produce resistance that logic can't solve) Are we solving for different stakeholders? (you may be designing for different audiences entirely) What assumptions are we each working from? (two rational people can reach opposite conclusions from different starting points). Surfacing the disagreement isn't confrontational — it's generous. It treats the other person as a serious thinker whose perspective deserves engagement, not management.

The Discipline Underneath All of It

Every strategy in this article rests on the same foundation: genuine curiosity about what the other person needs, and enough discipline to prioritize that over the urge to be right. The executives who influence most consistently aren't necessarily the most eloquent or the most prepared. They're the ones who make other people feel heard, valued, and like partners in something worth doing.  That’s not a soft idea. It's the hardest discipline in leadership.

Reflection Question: Think about a recent conversation where you wanted to move someone but didn't. Which of these strategies was missing — and what would you do differently if you had that conversation again? Comment and share below; we'd love to hear from you.

Quote: "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." — Dale Carnegie

As an executive leadership and team coach, I work with senior leaders to sharpen their influence and build the communication disciplines that move organizations. Contact me to explore this topic further.

The next article in this series (3/4) explores the science of persuasion — and the research framework that underlies all of it.

Who do you know that influences well?

The Art of Influence…For good: What Separates Leaders Who Move Organizations (Influence Series 1/4)

There's a moment most senior leaders recognize. You have the right idea. The data supports it. The timing is right. And yet — the initiative stalls. A key stakeholder goes quiet. A peer deflects. The energy in the room doesn't match the logic on the slide.

The instinct is to sharpen the argument. What actually needs sharpening is the foundation underneath it.

After nearly a decade coaching C-suite and senior executives across industries, I've come to see influence as the defining leadership skill at the top — not because it's about persuasion, but because it's about trust. Not the kind that comes with a title, but the kind built through consistency, credibility, and a genuine understanding of what others need to move forward. So why is influence so much harder than most leaders expect – especially at the top?

Why Influence Gets Harder as You Rise

The further you climb, the less positional authority moves people. You're no longer directing – you’re persuading peers, aligning boards, and building coalitions across competing priorities and power structures. That shift requires a fundamentally different approach.

Four challenges define the terrain:

1. Working across the matrix. The most critical work rarely follows a clean reporting line. You're asking peers to reprioritize, convincing business unit leaders to align on enterprise strategy, and building coalitions across functions with different KPIs and cultures. No org chart tells you how to navigate it.

2. Navigating organizational politics. At the senior level, political dynamics are more concentrated and consequential. A proposal can be technically sound and still fail — not because it lacks merit, but because of who championed it, who feels threatened by it, or what it signals about resources and power. I worked with a Chief Marketing Officer who had built a compelling, data-backed case for consolidating the company's brand architecture — a move that would have simplified the customer experience and reduced costs significantly. The business case was airtight. What she hadn't mapped was the informal power structure: one influential EVP had spent years building the very brand she was proposing to sunset, and felt the proposal was an implicit critique of his legacy. The initiative stalled for months — not because the idea was wrong, but because the relationship hadn't been built before the ask. Leaders who ignore organizational politics don't transcend them. They lose to them.

3. Meeting change resistance with real empathy. William Bridges, whose work on transitions remains foundational, reminds us that people don't resist change as much as they resist loss. The question isn't "why won't they move?" but "what do they stand to lose — and have I taken that seriously?" At the executive level, resistance is usually rational. Understanding that is the beginning of influence.

4. Translating buy-in into action. Even when you've won the argument, you haven't won the commitment. Execution requires time, budget, and people — all scarce. Influence has to outlast the room.

The Foundation: Influence Starts Long Before the Moment

One of the most consistent findings in research on executive effectiveness is that influence isn't primarily something you do in the moment — it's something you've built over time. Leaders who struggle focus on the argument. Leaders who excel focus on the relationship, the trust, and the ecosystem — before anything is at stake.

Here's the groundwork that makes influence possible:

1. Build good relationships. Stephen Covey's “emotional bank account” concept is as applicable in the boardroom as anywhere: every interaction either deposits or withdraws trust. The deposits that matter most at the executive level are reliability (doing what you say), generosity (advancing others' priorities without keeping score), and genuine attention. Many leaders and teams consistently do not do what they say they will. The executives who move organizations are known for one thing above all — you can count on them.

2. Map the ecosystem before you move. Effective influence requires situational intelligence: understanding stakeholders' priorities, pressures, and definitions of success before you begin shaping anything. This means knowing the informal power structure — who influences whom, who is trusted, whose voice carries weight in rooms you can't always access. This isn't political maneuvering. It's strategic empathy.

3. Practice real perspective-taking. There is a significant difference between knowing someone's perspective and actually inhabiting it. Before any significant stakeholder conversation, take five minutes to ask: what does success look like to them right now? What are they most worried about? What would need to be true for them to say yes? That brief investment changes everything about the conversation that follows.

4. Identify and cultivate allies early. John Kotter's research on leading change is unambiguous: a powerful guiding coalition is a prerequisite, not a nice-to-have. Bring key stakeholders into your planning at the outset — genuinely, not performatively. That transforms them from passive supporters into active co-owners. And that distinction matters when the initiative hits resistance.

5. Think sequentially about who hears what and when. The order in which ideas travel through an organization shapes how they land. Testing with your manager first, then building cross-functional support, means your idea arrives in rooms with momentum and early credibility already behind it.

6. Anticipate the resistance — and address it first. The most sophisticated influencers don't wait for objections; they surface them. Before any high-stakes proposal, ask: what's the strongest case against this? Then address it before it's raised. It signals intellectual rigor, demonstrates respect for the audience, and removes the adversarial dynamic that derails so many executive conversations.

A Word on Ethics

At the executive level, the line between influence and manipulation carries real consequences for trust, culture, and your long-term credibility. Influence done well is about alignment — finding where what you care about genuinely intersects with what others care about, and building something together that neither of you would have reached alone. Manipulation is a short-term strategy with long-term costs. The most effective leaders I know could tell you, with specificity, what they would never do to win agreement. That ethical clarity isn't a constraint on their influence. It is the source of it.

Reflection Question: Think about the most significant initiative you're currently trying to move forward. Where is the influence challenge really located — in the argument, the relationships, or the trust? What's one investment you could make this week in the foundation, not the pitch?  Comment and share below; we’d love to hear from you.

Quote: "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." — George Bernard Shaw

As an executive leadership and team coach, I work with senior leaders to strengthen their influence and navigate complex organizational dynamics. Contact me to explore this topic further.

The next article in this series (2/4) will go deeper into the communication dynamics and strategies of influence in action.

How do you like to influence?

The Dotted Line Dilemma: Leading Effectively in Matrix Organizations (Leadership Challenges 6/7)

The days of clear, siloed hierarchies are fading. In today’s complex business environment — where projects span geographies, products, and functions — leaders are increasingly working in matrixed organizations. In these structures, dotted line reporting has become common.

A dotted line reporting relationship means an employee has a primary manager (the solid line) and a secondary manager (the dotted line). The solid-line manager holds ultimate accountability, while the dotted-line manager influences goals, priorities, and performance. In theory, this structure fosters collaboration, agility, and cross-functional alignment. In practice, it often creates confusion, competing priorities, and blurred accountability.

For executive leaders, the dotted line is both an opportunity and a challenge. Done well, it accelerates collaboration and breaks down silos. Done poorly, it drains energy, slows decision-making, and leaves employees caught in the middle. I recently worked with a VP whose product managers each reported a solid line to her and a dotted line to regional sales leaders. The intent was to keep product and customer needs aligned, but instead, employees felt torn between short-term sales demands and long-term product strategy. With clear agreements on decision rights and regular triad check-ins, the team shifted from conflict and burnout to better trust and alignment — a reminder that the dotted line itself isn’t the issue, but how leaders manage it.

Benefits of Dotted Line Reporting

1. Stronger Collaboration Across Functions. When dotted lines work, they encourage knowledge-sharing and break down silos. Employees gain direct access to leaders in other functions, which strengthens alignment and helps them see how their work impacts the bigger picture. This model can support enterprise thinking — something matrix structures were designed to achieve.

2. Flexibility and Agility. A dotted-line manager can step in when the solid-line manager is unavailable or specialized expertise is required. This flexibility helps organizations move faster and make better decisions without being bottlenecked.

3. Broader Development for Employees. Employees exposed to multiple leaders receive a wider range of coaching, feedback, and perspectives. This can accelerate development — particularly in areas outside their functional “home base.”

Challenges Leaders Must Address:

1. Confusion and Competing Priorities. Employees often struggle to know whose requests take priority. Without clear agreements, they may waste time managing politics rather than the work.

2. Conflict Between Managers. If solid and dotted line managers aren’t aligned, employees can feel like they’re stuck between competing agendas. Research on matrix organizations (HBR, Problems of Matrix Organizations) shows that unresolved conflicts at the top cascade into stress and inefficiency at lower levels.

3. Accountability Gaps. When performance suffers, leaders sometimes point fingers rather than own responsibility. Without clarity, employees can feel unsupported and unsure of what success looks like.

Leadership Strategies for Success

1. Establish Crystal-Clear Roles and Responsibilities. Leaders must explicitly define what falls under the solid line versus the dotted line. Who owns performance reviews? Who sets priorities? Who provides coaching and feedback? Clarity removes guesswork and builds trust.

2. Align and Communicate Consistently. Managers in dotted line relationships must commit to regular alignment. Whether it’s a quick sync before big deadlines or monthly check-ins, the goal is to speak with “one voice” to employees. Mixed messages erode confidence and credibility.

3. Prioritize the Employee Experience. The burden of navigating dotted lines shouldn’t fall on employees. Leaders must proactively manage potential conflicts, provide guidance, and shield employees from being pulled in competing directions.

4. Build a Culture of Feedback and Transparency. Dotted line reporting works best in environments where open dialogue is encouraged. Continuous feedback — not just during formal reviews — ensures employees know how they’re doing and where to focus.

5. Use Check-ins as a Leadership Tool. Short, frequent check-ins across solid and dotted line managers help maintain alignment. They also give employees a chance to raise issues early, reducing the risk of burnout or disengagement.

Dotted line reporting is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be managed. In today’s matrixed organizations, the dotted line can either accelerate collaboration or create frustration. The difference lies in how leaders approach it. By setting clear roles, aligning consistently, and prioritizing the employee experience, executives can turn dotted-line reporting into a powerful tool for integration and growth. At its best, the dotted line isn’t a weakness in structure — it’s a bridge that connects functions, strengthens teams, and drives organizational success.

Quote of the Day: “Clarity affords focus” -Thomas Leonard

Reflection Question: How has dotted line reporting played out in your organization — as a bridge to collaboration or as a source of tension? Comment and share below; we’d love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 7/7 will focus on managing managers.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to sharpen their leadership skills and navigate tricky situations, contact me

How do you lead your dotted line?

Cultivating Commitment: A Guide to Securing Workplace Buy-in (Influence Series 4/4)

When you are successful with influence, you get buy-in or explicit agreement or commitment from others, often toward an idea, proposal, or project.  Buy-in indicates that the stakeholders or team members understand, support, and are committed to the initiative.

Let’s delve into practical strategies for obtaining buy-in with your team.  This same approach can be used with other groups you seek to gain support.

1. Fostering Open Dialogue and Collaboration.  Create space to collect as many voices as possible.  If you bring ideas to a project team and notice they are bouncing around with only a few voices dominating, invite the quieter team members to share their thoughts.  You can request that each member shares once before anybody else goes for a second time. This will validate the presence of all members, possibly solicit winning ideas from unexpected sources, and solidify the buy-in process as you incorporate the collective wisdom in the room and bring others along.

2. Offering Options.  Choice is a powerful motivator.  Consider a scenario where you need to implement a new software system.  By presenting the team with two vetted options and allowing them to select the one they prefer, you are not making a decision but rather empowering the team to shape their work environment. 

3. Encouraging Initiative.  There is something about owning an idea that ignites a drive in people.  When faced with a challenge, asking team members to propose solutions first can lead to innovation and a stronger commitment to the project’s success. For example, when a sales team faces declining numbers, the manager could ask each member to suggest strategies before proposing their ideas.  This can result in a team fully invested in the turnaround plan they helped craft.

4. Clarifying Roles While Encouraging Autonomy.  Clarity breeds confidence.  When everyone knows ‘what’ needs to be done but has the freedom to decide ‘how’, they’re most invested.  Take a software development team: the Team Lead outlines the feature requirements but leaves the implementation approach to the developer’s expertise, enhancing their ownership and accountability.

5. Encouraging Inquiry.  Questions are the pickaxes of understanding.  Allowing team members to ask questions during the decision-making process does not just clarify; it deepens their engagement.  It’s like a product development team querying the specifics of user feedback. It leads to a product that not only meets but exceeds expectations.

6. Practicing Empathy.  Understanding team members' daily experiences and challenges can transform the approach to influence.  For example, a manager considering a shift to remote work takes the time to understand each employee’s home setup and responsibilities, tailoring solutions that work for all.  Buy-in is more easily obtained when you are in touch with their realities.

Securing buy-in is an artful blend of communication, choice, and empathy.  Effective leaders listen actively, provide choices, and practice empathy, weaving individual commitments into a tapestry of collective success. The true measure of influence is the shared enthusiasm and dedication it inspires.

Quote of the day: You can’t inspire people if you are going to be uninspiring’ -Robert Reich

What has worked for you in securing buy-in at work?  Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to sharpen their influencing skills for win-win opportunities, contact me to explore this topic further.

Gaining buy-in for your ideas is an essential skill

The Power of Persuasion: Harnessing Cialdini’s Framework for Influential Leadership (Influence Series 3/4)

The last blog explored numerous ways to influence.  This one will focus on one model from renowned author Robert Cialdini, an American Psychologist and Professor who wrote a popular book on persuasion and marketing.  He found that influence is based on six key principles: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity.  A 7th principle of unity was added later.  

Here is what the concepts are all about and their applications to the workplace:

1. Reciprocity:  People have a natural tendency to reciprocate when someone does something for them. If you do a favor for someone, they are more likely to feel obligated to do something in return.  When working on a team or project, offer to help your colleagues when they need assistance.  They are more likely to reciprocate and help you in return and relationships can naturally blossom.

2. Commitment and Consistency: Once people make a commitment or take a stand on a particular issue, they tend to behave in ways that are consistent with that commitment. They want to align their actions with their stated beliefs. When presenting an idea or proposal, highlight how it aligns with the company's mission or previous decisions, emphasizing consistency with past actions to bring others along.

3. Social Proof:  People often look to the behavior of others as a guide for their own actions. When they see that many others are doing something, they are more likely to follow suit. Share success stories or case studies of how others in your organization have achieved positive results using a particular strategy or product.

Use testimonials and reviews to demonstrate that your product or service has been well-received by others in the industry.

4. Authority:  People tend to trust and obey authority figures.  They are more likely to be influenced by someone who is perceived as knowledgeable, credible, or an expert in a particular domain.  When presenting, establish your expertise by citing research, experience, or relevant qualifications.  Collaborate with influential figures or experts in your field to lend credibility to your initiatives or projects.

5. Liking: People are more easily influenced by those they like or feel a connection with so aim to find common interests. Building rapport and establishing a positive relationship can enhance your ability to persuade others, and a great way to do that is by showing genuine interest in their needs and concerns. 

6. Scarcity: The idea that something is scarce or in limited supply can make it more desirable to people.  They may be motivated to take action to acquire it before it's gone.  Create a sense of urgency around important projects or deadlines to motivate team members to prioritize their work.  Offer limited-time promotions or discounts to encourage customers to make purchasing decisions more quickly.

7. Unity: The more we identify ourselves with others, the more we are influenced by them.  Taking time to find commonalities through one-on-one engagements or team-building activities will allow you to build a good rapport and influence others.  You can emphasize common goals and values.

Cialdini’s principles provide a robust framework for ethical persuasion that can be applied to the workplace.  These concepts can enhance your ability to navigate team dynamics and inspire action. Influence, when rooted in authenticity, can drive progress and strengthen bonds within any organization.

Quote of the day: “The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority.” -Ken Blanchard

Which principle do you find to be the hardest and easiest to apply in the workplace?  Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series 4/4 will focus on getting buy-in.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to sharpen their influencing skills for win-win opportunities, contact me to explore this topic further.

How are you successful with influencing?

Influence in Action: Strategies Beyond Initial Planning (Influence Series 2/4)

In the previous blog, we navigated the intricate landscape of influence – uncovering the preparatory steps to set the stage for effective persuasion. This article will focus on what comes after the groundwork is already laid.

Let’s jump into some refined strategies for influencing:

1. Adapt your approach depending on the audience.   Influence is not a one-size-fits-all; tailor your style to match the audience, and if you are unsure, ask others their preferred style.

·      When you are trying to work cross-functionally and need to win the support of a peer you may want to opt for a bridging approach, which is all about building coalitions sometimes by making concessions to reach outcomes that satisfy your greater interest. 

·      If you are in crisis and people are relying on you to be decisive, you may want to use an asserting approach where you insist on the importance of your idea, making the call to run a pilot and revisit later.  

·      If you are dealing with a leader who heavily relies on logic, like a CFO, you may want to use a convincing approach based on logic, data, and expertise.  

2. Ask and enroll rather than tell.  Instead of presenting solutions immediately, ask open-ended questions to understand others’ challenges and perspectives and learn best about root causes.  Some questions include: What’s really going on here, how long has it been going on, what have you tried, why didn’t it work, what will be different, etc.  So many times, people will say, I need training on X, but it turns out that it would only treat the symptom because they really need Y. Dive deep to uncover the source and comprehensively understand their needs. 

Avoid dictating solutions; rather, involve others in the process. Right before the pandemic, an Executive client of mine told me that he presented to senior leaders a body of evidence that people who can work out of the office part-time tend to be happier, more productive, and will likely stay so he wanted to run a remote Friday experiment.  Immediately, the other leaders responded with reasons why they could not do that, and it was because he came in sounding like a preacher who saw the light and had the answers to a complex problem.  A better approach is to share an observation (“I am interested in the movement for growing flexibility at work”), and ask questions for engagement (“What do you see in your teams and organizations?”  “What are some upsides and downsides?”  “How could we design an experiment to combine the good and eliminate the bad and see if we can get similar results?”). This approach can be more collaborative and appealing and get buy-in.

3. Define the Win and Find Alignment.  It is one thing to say what you want and another thing to say what the win looks like and why it is important now.  Additionally, it is crucial to align your initiative with the other person’s goals and demonstrate how it benefits all parties.  In The Go Giver, one of the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success is a law on influence, which is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.  Adam Grant in Give and Take supports this idea and offers advice to appeal to their nobler motives, such as, “we all want to move forward and head to this deadline for these stakeholders.  Let’s spend our time today figuring out what’s not working and think about the big picture.”

You can use the Triangle framework (win-win-win).  As a result of this initiative, how does the company, the other team, and your team win?  You can also think about what happens if this does not get done. What’s the cost to the three entities?

4. Speak in “We,” not “I.”  Use inclusive language to convey a sense of collaboration rather than a zero-sum mentality. 

5. Frame the Discussion.  Control the narrative by steering the conversation in the desired direction.  Set the perspective and context to guide the audience’s understanding.  

6. Provide Evidence.  Leverage social proof and data to support your ideas.  Highlighting others' shared options and providing specific testimonials builds credibility.  For example, we surveyed 1,000 of our most loyal customers, and here is what they told us.  You can point to key leaders in the organization who have a lot of credibility and share how they also loved the idea when you shared it with them.  If others know that person is excited about an idea, they will be more likely to listen to it. 

Additionally, sharing data is essential.  If you ran some A/B testing and have data that supports one approach over another, offer that information.  Introducing data points from external companies regarding what is happening in the industry is always helpful.  One of my clients had to make a difficult decision about layoffs, and when she looked around the industry, she realized that 15% was the norm, so her suggestion of 10% was below average, making her influencing attempts easier.

7. Tell a good story.  When you can recast your arguments in an engaging story that touches people’s emotional and logical sides, they will receive your information even more.

8. Surface disagreements.  If you experience resistance, identify disagreements to find a way forward.  There will always be people with different opinions who see things differently and that’s ok.  You can state the disagreement and ask a few questions to uncover the root of the disagreement. For example, you can inquire:

·      What are we optimizing for?  (The goal should be aligned rather than having two different goals).

·      Are we focused on solving for different target audiences (you are designing for power users and I am for the causal user).

·      What are our working assumptions and what goes into forming them? (you may be operating from two fundamentally different assumptions).

At the end of the day, influencing is not about getting what you want or manipulating; it is about finding those win-win opportunities for all to benefit.  You want to be proud of the way you influence because you did it with kindness, respect, authenticity, and integrity.   

Quote of the day: “Smiling unknowingly influences how other people will respond to you.”  -Liam Jackson

How do you influence successfully?  What do you find hard about it?  Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series 3/4 will focus on a specific model of influence.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to sharpen their influencing skills for win-win opportunities, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your way of bringing others along?

The Art of Influence- for good (Influence Series 1/4)

Whether you need to drive a project forward, inspire a team, or advocate for change will depend on how well you have honed the coveted skill of influencing.  This can be defined as the ability to affect the actions, beliefs, or decisions of others through direct or indirect ways.  It is not about manipulation or coercion, rather, it’s built on genuine relationships and strategic communication aimed at achieving win-win solutions.

Challenges in Effective Influence

1. Working cross-functionally.  In many organizations, pivotal tasks transcend traditional hierarchies as you likely collaborate with peers and teammates outside your direct report line.  Those individuals might be driven by different objectives.  If you are working with 2+ teams, the complexities are compounded as what is beneficial for one team might be less important for another.  The challenge lies in shaping your pitch to resonate with different teams who might have different priorities and who may not want to upvote yours ahead of theirs.

2. Navigating Politics.  Every organization has its political undertones, be it alliances, rivalries, or past grievances.  Even if you bring forth groundbreaking ideas, they might be overshadowed by internal politics.  Some stakeholders, due to past affiliations, might not be receptive, irrespective of the merit of your proposal.

3. Encountering Change Resistors.  Many people gravitate toward predictability and consistency, making them hesitant to embrace new initiatives that might disturb the established routines or make their worklife a little more difficult. Your ideas can be great, but others may be dug in on the status quo.

4. Dealing with Resource Constraints.  Securing buy-in to your idea is just the beginning.  Even if stakeholders align with your viewpoint, the practical execution may fail due to limited resources, be it time, funding, or dedicated personnel.  Convincing teams to act, especially when resources are scarce, poses its own set of challenges.

Influencing starts way before the moment.  There is a lot of prework you can do to be set up for success.

Let’s explore effective strategies for influence:

1. Build good relationships.  Success in any role hinges on building positive, mutually beneficial relationships.  Take time to get to know your colleagues before needing any assistance.  Stephen Covey talks about the importance of building an “emotional bank account,” which is about depositing goodwill and trust into other people’s accounts.  This can be about affirming what others say in a meeting, engaging in deep listening to help others clarify an issue, or having a positive encounter that adds some joy to their lives.  If they have done something for you, thanking them with deep gratitude does wonders for relationship building.  People do business and work on initiatives with those they know and trust.

2. Create a perspective map.  Before attempting to influence, create a map of key stakeholders, such as skip level boss, manager, teammates, cross-functional peers, and identify their priorities.  List their current and future concerns, as well as their desired outcomes.  Consider how you want them to think, feel, and act because of your interaction.   

3. Practice Perspective-Taking.  Building trust and influence often involves empathizing with others and understanding their perspectives and priorities.  Dale Carnegie said, the only way to influence somebody is to find out what they want and show them how to get it.  It is about earnestly seeing from another point of view because ultimately people do things for their reasons and not yours so when you can tap into their intrinsic motivation, it will make a big difference.  Understanding where they are, caring genuinely, and appreciating it will help them move along and get them to where they want to go. 

A big reason why this does not happen is because people are too busy thinking about their next responses that they usually do not listen fully and are not as present to spot potential synergies.   Asking a follow-up question or offering an idea that can advance their initiative makes a big difference.   When you are genuinely curious and asking questions such as, “what are the effects of one approach over another” that allows them to think more deeply about their idea in a safe way, which is helpful.

4. Identify and Onboard Allies.  Identify potential allies of your project early on.  Categorize them as green (supportive) or yellow (open to persuasion but with questions).  At this stage, don’t go after the red (resistant or difficult to change).  When you bring people early on at the outset to join your planning team who feel like they also have a stake in the project, they are more likely going to assist you.  Seek additional sponsors and mentors who can enhance your credibility and social capital.

5. Identify Your Sequence-Sharing Strategy.  Plan the order in which you share information to maximize buy-in.  Every situation is different, but one can start with your manager’s support and gauge if the idea can work and gain more context.  You can ask questions to learn why anybody has not tried this before.  If it was attempted, why didn’t it work?  Through the discussions you can uncover additional pros and cons and field questions you might not have considered.  Then you can bring it to your team to get support to strengthen it even further, then think about the cross-functionals who would benefit from that problem being solved as well. As you continue to spread it to connections that are more distant, at least you have tested it and have initial support for it.

6. Anticipate concerns/rejections.   Sit with your team and anticipate rejections and responses to your initiative.  You can even bring up their concerns first before they do and address them.  If you’re unsure, you can ask chat GPT to steelman your arguments.  Once you get your team on board, you can work together to bring the ideas more widely having already strengthened them by defending them.

Wielding influence effectively hinges on more than just a moment of persuasion – it’s about cultivating trust, practicing empathy, and understanding the organizational ecosystem. By engaging with colleagues proactively, anticipating challenges, and thoughtfully mapping out communication strategies, you can navigate complex dynamics and secure the necessary buy-in. True influence is achieved through persistent and authentic connection, paving the way for collaborative success.

Quote of the day: One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important. Most people enjoy those rare moments when others make them feel important. It is one of the deepest human desires.
– Roy T. Bennett

How do you begin to build great relationships with others?  Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series 2/4 will focus on refined strategies for influencing. 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to sharpen their influencing skills for win-win opportunities, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your intention to influence?