To get the attention of higher ups chances are you

To get the attention of higher-ups, chances are you will need
to escalate your behavior or rhetoric to a level that creates some
personal risk. For example, you might generate a story in the press.
Leaking a story to a reporter might be effective in focusing people
on your issue, but will likely be considered an act of institutional
disloyalty if you are discovered. Rising to ask a CEO a provocative
question at a companywide picnic will surely get attention, but it
may well be focused exclusively on you and not the issue. Your
impertinence could even cost you your job, or at least cause some
of your colleagues to put themselves at a safe distance from you.
A friend told us of a situation in which her lack of author-
ity seemed to her an insurmountable barrier in mobilizing people
to focus on an important issue. She had been at a meeting of the
senior management team of a small company when a new depart-
ment head asked what seemed like a perfectly reasonable question.
The CEO responded with an outburst, attacking the idea as “the
most stupid thing I have ever heard.” This stunned everyone, and
the question was dropped. The meeting deteriorated, as everyone
else felt silenced. She realized that a nerve had been touched and

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Leadership on the Line
some unspoken issue had surfaced, but she felt unable to pursue it
in her role as just another member of the group. She also realized
that the department head’s appropriate and important question
would not be addressed. She discovered later that the issue underly-
ing the CEO’s outburst was his hope that the new department head
would relieve him of some of his responsibilities. He felt stretched
too thin. He took the question as a deeply frustrating signal that the
new colleague was not experienced or knowledgeable enough to
help him out.
Could our friend have intervened in that situation without put-
ting herself at risk? Could she have put the department head’s ques-
tion back on the table? More critically, could she have helped the
CEO and the group address the issue of the overburdened CEO and
the need for more talent? How could she have refocused the atten-
tion of the group?
A few possibilities: She might have waited a short while and
then asked the question again, in a different way. She might have
offered the observation that the CEO’s strong response seemed
disproportionate to the question, or she could even have asked
him why he felt that way. Perhaps after the tenor of the meeting
changed, she could simply have stated what everyone knew to be
true, that something was getting in the way of being productive.
Getting a group to focus on a tough issue from a position with-
out authority is always risky business. But you can lower the dan-
ger by speaking in as neutral a way as possible, simply reporting
observable and shared data rather than making more provoca-
tive interpretations. It may be more than enough simply to ask a
straightforward question in order to bring the underlying issue to
the surface.