We’re down to the final days of enrollment in the inaugural Speak Like a Senior Leader™ round. If you want to finally get the recognition and opportunities that match your actual level of contribution, then time is running out to grab one of the final spots. Head to https://speaklikeaseniorleader.com to secure your place before doors close on Friday July 25th. 

I want to keep today’s episode short and sweet to give you a tip and simple swap that will instantly elevate your credibility. And that is to focus on scope and scale. 

I’ll go into more detail and give you specific examples of what I mean in a minute. But I’m bringing this up because it’s a problem I see across our program – there’s something I notice again and again when I’m working with clients. And this one thing is making you sound way more junior than you actually are.

Here’s what happens: Someone with a significant title – Director of Operations, Senior Marketing Manager, VP of Strategy – will describe their work in a way that makes them sound like they could be managing a small project team or working as an analyst.

They’ll say things like “I help with strategic initiatives” or “We’re responsible for improving customer experience” or “My team supports business operations.” And I’m sitting there thinking: you run a $50 million P&L. You oversee 200 people across four countries. You just launched a product that generated $2 million in new revenue. But if someone only heard how you described your work, they’d think you were maybe having a really good quarter in an entry-level role.

You have a big title, but if someone reads your deck, email, or proposal, they could mistake you for someone with half the experience. 

You may be thinking, but that IS what I do… And you’re right. You DO help with strategic initiatives. Your team DOES support business operations. You ARE responsible for improving customer experience. But those descriptions could apply to literally anyone at any level in your organization. When you use the same language that could describe someone at any level, you’re not distinguishing yourself as someone who operates at a senior level. You’re blending into and it tells people absolutely nothing about your actual responsibilities or the magnitude of your impact. You’re hiding the most impressive parts of what you do behind generic language that makes you sound interchangeable with anyone else who might loosely touch that area of the business.

And that’s an issue, because the way you communicate shapes how people perceive your capability, your readiness for bigger roles, and frankly, what you’re worth.

Before we go further, let me define what I mean by scope and scale, because these are the two missing ingredients that separate senior-level communication from everything else.

Scope is the breadth, complexity, and reach of your work. It’s about geography, functions, stakeholders, complexity. It answers questions like: How many markets do you cover? What functions report to you? How many stakeholders are you managing? What’s the strategic importance of what you’re overseeing?

Scale is about magnitude and impact. It’s the numbers that matter to business leaders: revenue, cost savings, team size, budget, growth rates, customer metrics. It’s the quantifiable impact that makes executives pay attention.

Think of it this way: Scope = What you touch (breadth across markets, functions, stakeholders) Scale = How big it is (the numbers that show magnitude). 

Here’s a few examples of what this sounds like when you get it wrong versus when you get it right.

Junior version: “I oversee marketing for our key accounts.” Senior version: “I direct marketing strategy for our top 50 enterprise accounts across North America and EMEA, representing $180 million in annual contract value.”

Junior version: “We launched a new training program that’s been really successful.” Senior version: “We designed and deployed a leadership development program across 8 business units, training 100+ managers and reducing time-to-promotion by 30% while increasing retention rates to 94%.”

Junior version: “My team handles customer support operations.” Senior version: “I lead a 45-person customer experience organization across three time zones, maintaining a 95% satisfaction rating while processing 10,000+ inquiries monthly for our 500k active users.”

Do you hear the difference? The work is the same. The impact is the same. But the communication creates a completely different perception of the person’s level of operation.

Let me tell you about Maria, one of my clients who runs development for a major nonprofit. She came to me frustrated because she kept getting passed over for board presentation opportunities and planning sessions, even though she had one of the most successful track records in the organization.

When I asked her to describe her work, she said: “I work with donors and foundations to secure funding for our programs. We make a real difference in the community by helping families in need access essential services.”

Sounds nice, but completely forgettable. There’s nothing in that description that tells me she’s operating at a higher level or managing significant complexity.

After we worked together, here’s how she learned to position the same work: “I oversee development operations across five program areas, managing relationships with 200+ major donors and 15 foundation partners. Last year, I secured $4.2 million in funding – a 35% increase over the previous year – enabling us to serve 12,000 families across three counties while expanding our emergency assistance program to double the number of households.”

Within six months, she was invited to present the annual strategy to the board and got approval for two additional staff members. 

If you’re hearing everything I’m saying and thinking..oh, I’m really guilty of this. Please do not beat yourself up. Because it’s very fixable and there’s many reasons why you might be overlooking this: 

Impostor syndrome can lead you to minimize your impact. You think that being specific about numbers like bragging and you’re mistaking humility for professionalism. But what you call bragging, senior leaders call credibility. And there’s a difference between being boastful and being clear about the value you create. 

You’re also probably too close to your own work. When you live in the details every day, it’s easy to forget how significant what you’re managing actually is. You think everyone knows you run a complex operation, so you don’t spell it out or realize you even have to. 

But every time you use vague, junior-level language to describe senior-level work, you’re training people to see you as less capable than you are. You’re literally programming their perception – and not in a good way. 

This isn’t just about sounding more impressive for the sake of it. The way you communicate scope and scale has downstream effects on practically everything that matters for your career trajectory.

Budget conversations. When you’re asking for additional headcount or resources, leaders need to understand the complexity and scale of what you’re managing. If you sound like you’re running a small operation, you’ll get a small budget.

The decision making conversations you get invited to. Executives invite people to strategic conversations based on their perception of that person’s level of operation. If you sound tactical, you won’t get invited to be in the room where it happens. 

Promotion decisions. When leadership is deciding who’s ready for the next level, they’re assessing whether you can think and operate at that level. How you communicate your current scope is evidence of your readiness for expanded scope.

Team credibility. Your team’s reputation and leverage within the organization is partly determined by how you position their work. When you undersell the scope and scale of what your team delivers, you’re limiting their career opportunities too.

The bottom line is that you’ve worked hard to get to the level you’re at and adding this scope and scale language can inject that gravitas you’ve been looking for to be taken more seriously. 

This is exactly why I created the SPEAK System inside Speak Like a Senior Leader™. It’s a complete communication overhaul that touches every interaction you have.

S — Shift Your Style (so your message lands with different personalities) 

P — Present with Poise (handle curveballs without breaking a sweat)

E — Express Your Impact (get credit for the value you actually create)

A — Articulate in Writing (make every email or message work in your favor) 

K — Keep Composure (disagree without being seen as difficult)

Over 12 weeks you’ll get hands-on weekly coaching, tactical lessons, templates and tools to: 

✅ Walk into a meeting with your C-level without breaking a sweat or your heart racing, because you KNOW you can handle their questions 

✅ Send emails that get moved to the top of people’s priority lists instead of buried in their “later” folder

✅ Present complex ideas in ways that make executives lean forward and say “that was great” instead of checking their phones

✅ Disagree with your boss’s strategy without being labeled as “difficult” or “not a team player”

✅ Articulate your results and decisions so clearly that you’re tapped on the shoulder and asked, “Are you ready to take on more responsibility?”

Remember doors close soon on July 25th at 11:59pm and the next cohort won’t start until 2026. So get the details and grab your spot at https://speaklikeaseniorleader.com now. 

Until the next episode, take care.