It's Trust, Not Skill — What Separates Senior Leaders Who Actually Have Influence

Most senior leaders I’ve worked with did not struggle because they lacked skill. They struggled because the room did not fully trust them yet — and they could not figure out why.

At the director and VP level, competence is expected. Everyone around you is smart, and everyone is delivering.

The thing that separates the leaders who have real influence from the ones who are constantly pushing uphill is not output.

It is whether people in the room believe what you are saying before you’ve finished saying it.

The small things most leaders skip

That kind of trust is not built by being the smartest person in the meeting. It’s built on the small things that most leaders either skip — or don’t realize they’re getting wrong.

• → Saying “I don’t know” before someone else finds out you don’t.
• → Giving your team credit in rooms they are not in.
• → Having the hard conversation in week one — instead of letting it quietly become a problem in month three.
• → Making a decision with 60% of the information and standing behind it, instead of waiting for certainty that will never come.

These are not leadership theories. These are patterns I have seen repeatedly across 17 years of managing engineering teams and now coaching the people who lead them.

The title is not the hard part

Earning the room’s trust is.

And most leaders do not get honest feedback about where they stand on that — until it’s already costing them.

P.S. If you are a senior leader in tech and you have ever felt like your results are not translating into the influence you expected, it is worth exploring why. I work on this with clients regularly through my executive coaching practice. Book a discovery call — these conversations tend to clarify more than you expect.