Stakeholder Management & InfluenceOne conversation before the steering group with the director who can block you. What do you say?
Thirty-two items — 17 stakeholder dilemmas, three multi-selects, two evidence questions and ten behavioural statements — measure how you read power, legitimacy and interest, choose an influence move the evidence supports and hold competing interests together. Five banded competencies, a 60% pass mark and a growth plan.
Reading power, legitimacy, interest and timing is the whole test
The 17 dilemmas are the ones that decide cross-functional work. A senior director in another function has been quietly unconvinced and you get one substantive conversation before the steering group decides. A regional executive could block you in principle but has shown no interest, is untouched by the work and has delegated everything to a junior manager. You must brief the finance chief and the engineering lead on the same risk, short on time, and they care about different things. Two senior stakeholders you both depend on are in conflict and each wants you to confirm the other is unreasonable. The stretch band raises this to board level.
Every option is weighted against public research on influence-tactic effectiveness, stakeholder salience as power, legitimacy and urgency, influence without authority through currencies of exchange, brokerage across network gaps, bases of power and power-interest engagement planning, with a written rationale for each weight. The bank is original AssessAll work; no stakeholder-mapping consultancy or coined vocabulary appears. The behavioural-tendency framing asks what you are most likely to do rather than what you know, and the ten behavioural statements include reverse-keyed items, so the politically fluent self-report earns nothing extra.
The report bands Stakeholder Influence, Stakeholder Communication, Conflict Navigation, Systems Thinking and Negotiation & Value beneath a 0–100 score against the 60% pass mark, each with a coaching interpretation for the stakeholder landscape you face now. A narrative generated from your own responses says which influence habit carries you and which spends trust or attention you do not have. The growth plan is built from the lowest two, and the item review explains all 32 weights, so the manager who brought a senior sponsor into the room can read what that did to the director's position.
What you walk away with
Stakeholder Influence, Stakeholder Communication, Conflict Navigation, Systems Thinking and Negotiation & Value each come back banded, with the 0–100 score shown against the 60% mark. The radar shows whether you read the system well but ask badly, or influence well and get triangulated.
Each band carries a coaching paragraph about what it does in practice: how Developing on Stakeholder Influence uses the one conversation with the unconvinced director, what Strong on Systems Thinking decides about the senior person who could block but does not care.
Built from your lowest competencies, the plan proposes concrete moves — a salience map of your current stakeholders, a currency list for the three hardest, a briefing structure that lands with two audiences at once, a rule for staying out of the middle of a senior conflict.
The item review shows your choice, the evidence-favoured option and the published rationale for the weight. Where you gave the disengaged senior heavy attention because of their rank, the explanation shows what salience research says that costs the stakeholders who actually matter.
What comes back
Illustrative sample — your report is generated from your own responses.
Band edges at 40, 60 and 80. Each band carries its own coaching interpretation for that competency.
One number, one band, and a two-sentence summary of what the band means for you — then the breakdown that explains it.
Built for
- Managers and senior managers leading cross-functional initiatives through steering groups
- Programme directors, chiefs of staff and transformation leads who work through senior sponsors
- Functional heads whose proposals live or die on a handful of executive relationships
- Hiring panels for roles where the work is done through stakeholders rather than reports
Someone has already briefed the steering group. Make sure your habits beat theirs.
Thirty-two items in about 34 minutes, then five banded competencies, a pass-mark result and a growth plan the moment you submit.
₹999 (incl. GST) · assessment and full report, nothing further to pay
Frequently asked questions
How accurately you read a stakeholder landscape, how well you choose an influence move the evidence says works, and how you hold competing interests together when they collide. Five competencies — Stakeholder Influence, Stakeholder Communication, Conflict Navigation, Systems Thinking and Negotiation & Value — are measured through 17 dilemmas, three multi-selects, two evidence questions and ten behavioural statements, with a stretch band pitched at executive and board-level influence. It suits managers who deliver through steering groups and sponsors.
Each option is weighted against published research on influence tactics, stakeholder salience, exchange, brokerage and power, with a written rationale for every weight, and the overall score is shown against a 60% pass mark. Political skill helps only if it has taught the right lessons; the dilemmas are built so that common moves — bringing in a bigger sponsor, over-serving the most senior name, tying the ask to someone's legacy — are often weaker than they feel. Reverse-keyed statements catch the fluent self-report.
About 24 to 32 minutes within a 34-minute window. You receive a 0–100 score against the pass mark, five banded competencies with coaching interpretations, a radar, a narrative generated from your own responses, a strengths-and-development summary, a growth plan built from your lowest competencies and a full review of all 32 items with the evidence behind each weight. Everything is included; there is nothing further to unlock.
Influence Without Authority is the broader mid-level measure with 24 items and no pass mark. This assessment goes deeper — 17 dilemmas, a 60% pass mark and a stretch band reaching board level — for people whose work depends on a handful of senior relationships. Hiring panels use its bands to structure interviews; programme leads use it before a governance cycle; individuals use the growth plan against their real stakeholder map and retake after six months.
Yes. The dilemmas describe generic governance — a steering group, a disengaged senior, two audiences for one risk, a senior conflict — and the research base is international. Managers in India, the UK, the Gulf, Singapore and North America sit the same 32 items and receive the same report. The assessment is priced in INR and USD, and the price on this page is the whole price.
Each battery takes one management capability — delegation, coaching, conflict, influence, decision-making, change — and measures it through situational judgement scored against published evidence, with a competency profile, coaching interpretations and a prioritised growth plan. For the level-by-level readiness verdicts, see Leadership & Management Premium.
See the leadership catalogue →Methodology: Original AssessAll scenarios and items operationalising public, well-established influence and stakeholder constructs: Yukl's influence tactics and the Higgins/Judge/Ferris meta-analysis of tactic effectiveness; Mitchell, Agle & Wood stakeholder salience (power x legitimacy x urgency); Cohen & Bradford influence without authority (currencies of exchange); Burt structural-holes brokerage; French & Raven bases of power; and the Mendelow power-interest engagement grid. Situational-judgement scoring is literature-keyed: each option's weight reflects the published evidence on what is most effective, with a documented per-option rationale. Not derived from or affiliated with any commercial instrument; no items copied or paraphrased from any branded assessment. Flagship items are tagged for optional human SME validation.