Locked out of a decision? Try the air duct.
There is often frustration when a leader feels their voice is not being heard on a key decision. They have the title, the team and the experience, but still hit a wall on an issue that is being discussed at a strategic level. When that happens, the first reaction can be to push harder, get louder, vent to the people around you, or at the extreme, start to look for a new job where you feel your voice will be heard. The frustration can feel like trying every key in a locked door.
But what if you tried to enter the room from a different place? A window, an air vent, a pop-up trap door? In fear of getting all Mission Impossible, this is not as outlandish as it sounds. Tom Cruise doesn't walk through the front entrance to get to what he's after. He drops from the ceiling through an air duct, finds the way in that nobody thought to guard. If you look at this challenge through the lens of positional power, you just may find your inner secret agent.
When leaders feel unheard, the problem is unlikely to be the quality of their argument. More often, it's where they're standing when they make it. Positional power determines who gets heard, whose ideas get resourced and whose voice lands at the level where decisions are made. A leader can have authority within their team and little traction at the level above them where the decision sits. That gap is often systemic, not a failure in your leadership. There is a distinction between formal authority, the power that comes with your role, and informal authority, the trust and credibility people give you beyond your title. Understanding both, and where each one carries weight in your organisation can change how you approach the situation.
Knowing who holds the positional power tells you two things. Firstly, where you can influence directly, and secondly, where the decision lives and who has the access and credibility there that you currently do not. That's where you find your air duct.
Three things to try
Map before you move. Before your next attempt to influence a decision, work out where the decision sits. Who has formal authority over it? Who is listened to? Where does your credibility already have traction in that system? You are not looking for the shortest line between you and the outcome, you are looking for where your influence has the best chance to make a difference.
Find the person who can hear you. When you feel unheard, the instinct is to keep making the case to the person who isn't listening. Instead, find someone whose trust you already have and who has proximity to the decision. Start a conversation that allows you to think out loud and gain insight into the machinations of the issue. That conversation will tell you more about the system than another email to the person who isn't responding.
Name what you bring. Informal authority is often invisible to the person who has it. Before your next high-stakes conversation, ask yourself what credibility you have in this area, what do you know that others around the table don't? What have you already delivered that gives your view weight? Knowing that before you walk in changes how you show up in the moment.
The front door is not always the right door. Sometimes the most effective move is finding the air duct or coming in from a different angle so you can still land on target.
References and further reading
Ronald Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers, Harvard University Press, 1994
Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow & Marty Linsky, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Harvard Business School Press, 2009
