Leading when you’re not the one in the room
Your job happens in places and spaces you never see
Your work is discussed in meetings you don’t attend. Your decisions are interpreted by people who weren’t in the conversation. Your intent is relayed second hand. Your priorities are weighed against competing agendas you weren’t present to hear. Your name comes up in rooms you didn’t even know existed. And yet you’re still accountable for the outcomes
It’s disorientating when you first realise this. Not because you feel like you lack influence, but because you realise your influence has started to behave differently. It becomes indirect, distributed, filtered through other people’s language, confidence, memory, and political instincts
This is the part of senior leadership no one warns you about. Your leadership has to travel without you. The real question then becomes:
How far does it travel?
How accurately does it travel?
How consistently does it travel?
In what condition does it arrive?
For product and transformation leaders whose work cuts across functions, incentives, and power structures, this dynamic isn’t a side effect of the role. It is the role
The reality of your leadership travelling without you
At senior levels, your leadership is no longer defined by what you say or do in the moment. It’s defined by:
How people talk about you
How they interpret your decisions
How they represent your work
How they advocate for (or against) your priorities
How they explain your intent to others
How they carry your message into rooms you’ll never enter
This is the invisible layer of leadership. The part no one teaches you, but everyone experiences
Your influence becomes distributed, and distributed influence requires a different kind of leadership muscle
Why this hits product and transformation leaders hardest
Your work is inherently cross functional. Your success depends on alignment across technology, operations, finance, risk, legal, customer, strategy, executive leadership, and more
You’re constantly navigating competing incentives and fragmented ownership. You’re often the one introducing change, challenging assumptions, or pushing for decisions that cut across silos
This means your work is discussed in:
Steering committees
Portfolio reviews
Executive stand ups
Risk forums
Budget cycles
Offsites
Corridor conversations
And you’re not in most of those rooms. So the question becomes: what version of you is being represented when you’re not there?
The leadership gap: when your intent doesn’t travel well
High performing leaders often assume their work speaks for itself. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s all in how you set it up. What travels is:
The clarity of your framing
The consistency of your message
The confidence others have in your
The relationships you’ve built
The emotional tone you set
The way people feel after working with you
The narrative others construct about your leadership
When these elements are weak or inconsistent, you experience:
Misinterpretation
Misalignment
Decisions made without your context
Priorities reshuffled without your input
Escalations you didn’t expect
Surprises you shouldn’t have received
A sense of being “out of the loop”
This isn’t a capability issue. It’s a leadership transmission issue
The leaders who thrive in rooms they’re not in do three things exceptionally well
They create clarity that survives retelling
Your message must be:
Simple
Repeatable
Durable
Hard to distort
Easy to advocate for
If your framing requires you to be present to explain it, it won’t survive the room. High impact leaders use:
Clean problem statements
Sharp trade offs
Clear priorities
Explicit constraints
Memorable language
Clarity is a form of insurance
They build advocates, not dependencies
You can’t be in every room. But your advocates can be. Your advocates are not your cheerleaders. But rather, they are:
Executives who trust your judgment
Peers who respect your thinking
Stakeholders who understand your intent
Team members who can articulate your strategy
Leaders who feel safe representing your work
Advocacy is earned through:
Consistency
Credibility
Calmness
Integrity
Relationship equity
Advocates extend your influence
They manage their leadership narrative intentionally
Every senior leader has a narrative. A shorthand story people tell about them. For example:
“She’s strategic and steady”
“He’s great under pressure”
“She always brings clarity”
“He’s strong on execution but weak on alignment”
“She’s brilliant but hard to read”
“He’s reliable but not strategic”
These narratives shape how your work is interpreted when you’re not there. High impact leaders shape their narrative consciously, not reactively
The three levers of leading when you’re not in the room
Message transmission
Your message must be clear, concise, contextualised, and repeatable. Ask yourself:
“If someone repeated this in a meeting, would it land the way I intend?”
“What would get lost in translation?”
“What would get distorted?”
If your message can’t travel, your leadership can’t scale
Relationship infrastructure
Influence is relational, not positional. You need:
Peers who trust you
Executives who respect you
Stakeholders who feel seen by you
Teams who feel empowered by you
Relationships are the channels through which your leadership travels
Emotional signature
People don’t just carry your message. They carry your energy. Your emotional signature is:
How people feel after interacting with you
How they describe you to others
How they interpret your intent
How they represent your leadership tone
If your emotional signature is calm, grounded, clear, fair, and strategic then your leadership travels well. If it’s rushed, defensive, overwhelmed, ambiguous, and reactive then your leadership gets distorted
The cost of not leading beyond the room
When your leadership doesn’t travel well, you experience:
Decisions made without your input
Priorities shifting unexpectedly
Misalignment that feels personal
Escalations that shouldn’t exist
Teams confused about direction
Peers bypassing you
Executives questioning your readiness
This is not a performance issue. It’s a visibility and interpretation issue
The opportunity is leading at enterprise altitude
When your leadership travels well, you experience:
Faster alignment
Fewer escalations
More strategic opportunities
Greater trust from executives
Stronger cross functional influence
A reputation for leadership maturity
A sense of ease instead of constant vigilance
This is the shift from functional leadership to enterprise leadership
If you’re feeling the friction of not being in the room, you’re not alone
Every senior leader reaches this point. Sometimes many times over. It’s not a sign you’re failing. It’s a sign your role has expanded
You’re no longer leading through presence. You’re leading through interpretation, narrative, and influence at scale. And that’s a skill you can strengthen
If you want your leadership to travel further, faster, and more accurately, let’s work on this together. Here are three ways:
Interim Executive Leadership/Consulting - when the transformation needs someone inside the system stabilising, steering, and delivering,
Capability Building - when leaders and teams need the capability everyone expects but no one teaches: how to navigate the people, politics, and performance expectations that come with their jobs, and
Executive Coaching - when senior leaders need a confidential, strategic partner to think clearly, make decisions, and lead through complexity.