How senior leaders shift from performing to truly landing with the room in front of them.
Mark Bateman | December 4, 2025
Boards and executive teams do not want leaders who perform.
They want leaders who bring clarity, depth, and presence at the right altitude for the room they are in.
Once you understand the maturity of a board or leadership team — Safety, Strategy, or Legacy — the next question becomes simple:
How do I show up in a way that actually works?
Let’s look at what each room needs.
This is the team that feels like it is carrying the psychological weight of the entire organization.
Every question is cautious. Every document is long. Every conversation loops back to risk because that is the only place they feel in control.
Your role here is not to impress them. It is to steady them.
L1 groups do not want more information. They already have too much.
They want someone who can take the noise, distill it, and give them something they can hold without fear.
If you do that, they will trust you. And trust is influence.
These teams are trying to think strategically, but they do not always know how to stay there.
You can almost see their attention flicker between the present and the future.
Here, your job is to think with them.
Not perform. Not prove. Think.
They need options.
They need patterns.
They need implications.
They need consequences. They need someone who can say:
Here is what I am seeing.
Here is what it means.
Here is what might happen next.
L2 teams respond to altitude.
Give them that, and you elevate the entire conversation.
These are the groups that do not flinch when truth is uncomfortable.
With them, you do not hide.
You do not dilute.
You do not manage perception.
You speak from purpose.
You speak with courage.
You speak to legacy, not logistics.
L3 boards and leadership teams are not assessing your function.
They are assessing your worldview.
They are looking for leaders who can hold the weight of the organization with clarity and conscience.
Show up with depth and truth and they will see you.
Before any conversation with any senior executive, ask one question:
What does this person need from me today?
Not what you are proud of.
Not what your deck contains.
Not what your function wants to showcase.
And then ask:
Who do I need to be for that to land?
Boards and senior teams trust presence more than performance.
Judgement more than jargon.
Altitude more than anything you put on a slide.
When you shift how you show up, the whole room shifts with you.