Much of leadership development (rightly) focuses on how leaders can manage their own teams. Often neglected, however, is the art of reporting up. Even CEO’s have to report up: To the board of directors, investors and politicians. Insufficient skill building in this area can have disastrous results.
Reporting Up is an art and does require good rhetorical skills. But to be an artist, you must first build skills. I coach leaders who are struggling in this area to use a three-part flow:
Give the story so far
Give your opinion
Task your audience
By far the most screw ups I've seen are in step 1. You always want to open the meeting with a neutral narrative given in the third person. Why? Because people respond to narrative, they need the context it provides. Second, you will sound much more authoritative if your words are neutral and in the third person.
What sounds better? "Our team is executing well but the customer keeps coming up with new requirements", or "the project challenge is to meet changing product demands".
Also, if you deliver the story in the third person and are factual, you will avoid making the very large mistake of sounding defensive. Defensive behaviors reduce your legitimacy and make the audience wonder if there’s something to the story that’s not being told.
Your goal for this first part is to sound like a newspaper story. Good newspaper stories are neutral, factual and remember, are STORIES. Do NOT include yourself in the story. That's why words like "the challenge" or "the project" work well here.
Second, give your opinion. Look, if you're a director or a VP, your management chain respects your judgement already. In fact they want to hear your opinion. Most technical people fail by giving far too much technical detail then defer all the opinions to their boss, that's not adding value.
Finally there's the job of tasking your audience. This can be delicate. You have to truly understand what your boss can and cannot practically do for you. Some of you shy away from tasking your boss. It seems dangerous and could backfire.
In fact, I once saw a director go to a VP and say: I need 10 more people. The VP didn't have the authority to give him 10 people. The meeting went south.
But here's the thing: most bosses want to help you but don't know how. It's not obvious how they can help. And here's the danger: if you don't task your boss, they will find a way to "help" you in ways that will interfere, and that will get awkward. So think really really hard about what your boss can actually do that's productive. If there's really truly nothing, then say so explicitly.
This three step rhythm is effective. I’ve used it and coached people to use it. Try it and see.