The Seat Nobody Assigns You

If people tell you about decisions after they're made, you're not influential yet.

Think about that for a second. Not because it's harsh, but because it's useful. There's a very specific kind of professional power that has nothing to do with your title, your tenure, or how hard you've worked. It's the kind where people loop you in before the decision. Where they send the message that says, "What do you think about this?" before they've made up their minds. That's not seniority, that's positioning - and it's completely learnable.

I want to introduce you to two people. Same company, same level, same team. Let's call them Priya and Marcus.

Priya is excellent at her job. She delivers. She meets her deadlines, she knows her stuff, and her manager will give her glowing reviews when requested. But when the leadership team sits down to talk strategy, Priya finds out what they decided in the all-hands meeting, same as everyone else.

Marcus, again, same role, same experience. But somehow he keeps ending up in conversations before decisions are finalized. People cc him on things and they grab him before a meeting to ask what he thinks. His colleagues say, "Let me check with Marcus." Not because Marcus is more senior, but because somewhere along the way, Marcus became the person people think of when they want to think better.

The difference between Priya and Marcus isn't talent or luck. It's that Marcus learned how to show up in the thinking, not just the doing.

Here's what most high performers misunderstand about influence. You think it's about having the right answer. So you focus on being thorough, being accurate, and being undeniably correct. And then you wait to be asked.

But influence doesn't work like a test where you raise your hand after you've solved it. It works more like a conversation and the people who shape decisions are the ones who are already in the conversation when the options are still forming.

You don't become the person people check with by having better answers. You become it by helping people think better before they decide.

That's the shift. From answer-giver to thinking partner. And it changes everything about how you show up - in meetings, in hallway conversations, in the two-line Slack message you send when you notice something before anyone else has.

So what does Marcus actually do differently? It comes down to three habits that are easy to miss because none of them are loud.

1. Speak in implications, not just opinions. There's a version of having a point of view that keeps you at the surface, "I think X is the better option." And then there's the version that earns you a seat: "If we go with X, it's likely to impact Y in this way, especially given where we're headed in Q3." One is a preference while the other is foresight. People don't consult preferences, they consult foresight.

2. Be early, not louder. The earlier you appear in the thinking process, the more your perspective shapes the outcome. Now, that doesn't mean forcing yourself into every conversation. It means noticing when something is still being figured out, and offering one or max two sentences before the options get locked in. Even a well-timed question at the right moment signals that you're paying attention at a different level than most.

3. Be the person who makes thinking easier, not more complicated. Ask the question no one has asked yet, name the tension in the room that everyone feels but no one is saying, or offer the reframe that gets things unstuck. When people walk away from a conversation with you feeling clearer, not just informed, but actually clearer or unstuck, they come back. Again and again and again.

Here's what this looks like in practice. Two versions of the same moment:

Stays invisible: "That sounds good to me. Whatever the team decides works."

Builds positioning: "One thing worth considering before we lock this in - if we go this route, it'll likely affect the timeline on the other project. Happy to think through it out loud if it’s useful."

Same meeting. Same 45 seconds. Completely different positioning. The second person just became someone worth checking with.

Priya, by the way, is a real type, not a cautionary tale. She's doing everything she was told to do - work hard, deliver results, not overstep. And for a long time that was enough, but at a certain level, the doing isn't what earns the seat. The thinking does.

The good news: this isn't a personality trait. You don't have to be naturally outspoken, politically savvy, or especially bold. You just have to start showing up one step earlier - in the forming phase, not just the deciding phase with one more implication attached to your point of view or with one question that makes the room go quiet in a good way.

That's what moves you from the person who executes decisions to the person who shapes them. And once people start checking with you before they decide, that reputation compounds fast. Influence isn't given. It's built, quietly, one well-timed thought at a time.

So here's my question for you this week: are you usually in the room when options are forming or when the decision's already been made? Reply and tell me. I read everything you share, and I'd genuinely love to know where you are right now.