Something to readWorking with your manager
How to present to executives
An 8-minute essay on why presentations to senior leaders go sideways, and how to prepare so the meeting is worth having
Why it’s worth your time
Presenting to senior leaders is a different skill from presenting to your peers, and habits that work with your team can backfire in that room. Will Larson, an engineering leader who writes the blog Irrational Exuberance, explains why each executive tends to take in information in one particular way, and how a structured written opening, early feedback from the right people and a willingness to listen can save the meeting. It's short, specific and useful well beyond engineering.
How to present to executives
The essay · 8 min · Free
Opens their site. We don’t copy it here; we’d rather they get the read.
- Read the essay.
The section on why this is hard explains how executives each tend to absorb information in their own way, which is the insight most worth taking. Then read the four-part opening he recommends, with its worked example, and the list of mistakes at the end.
- Rewrite your next update's opening in four sentences.
Take something you'll bring to a senior leader soon. Write one sentence each for the situation, what makes it a problem, the question to decide and your answer. Then send the draft to someone who'll be in the room and ask what they'd change.
Good moments for this: before a leadership reviewbefore a planning meetingwhen you need a decision from above
Keep going with Truest
Small actions add up. Truest helps you find the next thing worth doing, make the space to do it, and keep a record of your progress. It’s a private place to work on your career, and it’s yours, not your employer’s.
- It actually happensWe’ll put it on your calendar and remind you before it starts.
- You know what’s nextTruest suggests the next small thing to try, based on what you’re working on.
- It’s yours to keepEach thing you do is saved to your private record, there when your next review or job search comes around.
Anything else we can help you with this week?
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Some leaders probe with quick questions until something matches their experience; others discount any claim without data in front of them. A peer who has presented to them before is often the fastest way to find out which you're facing.
What might make this harder
That may be how this executive takes things in. Answer the questions; your structured opening has done its job if it started the right conversation.
Questions people ask
What is the SCQA format?
A way to open a document or presentation in four parts: the situation, the complication that makes it a problem, the question that needs answering, and your answer. It comes from Barbara Minto's The Pyramid Principle, which Larson recommends.
How do you present to executives?
In Larson's account: know why you're there (planning, a status update or resolving misalignment), write a structured document with your answer up front, get feedback beforehand from peers and the people with a stake in the decision, and treat the meeting as a chance to learn their view.
What mistakes should you avoid when presenting to executives?
Larson lists fighting feedback, hiding problems, bringing a question without an answer, giving an academic-style presentation, and fixating on the outcome you want.
What is nemawashi?
A Japanese term for quietly building agreement with the people involved before a formal decision. Larson uses it for sharing your draft with the people involved ahead of an executive meeting.
What it says, and how it holds up
If you've walked out of a meeting with senior leaders unsure what just went wrong, this essay was written for that moment. Will Larson, an engineering leader and the author of several books on engineering management, published it in 2021. His diagnosis is that most executives are very good at one way of taking in information, and everything around them is set up to feed them that way. Brief them in the wrong shape and the meeting can misfire in a way neither of you can quite put your finger on.
His fix starts with purpose. A meeting with an executive is usually for planning, a status report or settling a disagreement, and in each case the goal is to draw out their perspective rather than win them over. The tool is writing: a structured document whose first paragraph follows the situation, complication, question and answer format from Barbara Minto's work on business writing, shared early with peers and anyone with a stake in the outcome. If you take only one thing, he suggests, make it sending an early draft to an executive who'll attend and asking what to change.
It's written from inside tech companies, where written pre-reads are common, and some workplaces run on slides and live pitches instead. Larson admits the full Pyramid Principle was hard going when he first tried it, and suggests most people start with the four-part opening alone. In a slide culture the answer-first opening still carries over: put the answer on the first slide, and for leaders who want proof, show the data beside each claim rather than in an appendix.
None of this helps much if you're never in the room. If your manager presents your work for you, the first conversation is with them, about getting in front of leadership yourself. And if a meeting is adversarial, such as a dispute over a mistake, preparation still matters, but the advice here assumes good faith on both sides.
You might like
More in Working with your manager
See allRead this alongside your role page
Tell Truest what you’re dealing with
We read every one, and we write guides for the things that come up most. Leave your email if you’d like to hear when we do.
Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.