Why this issue matters:

• Your work is strong, but it’s not getting you the seat or the say

• Others with less skill are being seen as leaders and getting the call-ups

• Leadership isn’t a title, it’s a skill set and right now, it’s your missing lever

• If you don’t shift now, you risk being the most capable person no one listens to

The Leadership Levers: Four Must-Have Capabilities

According to Ajit Kambil’s The Leadership Accelerator, leaders who transition well master four core competencies: time, talent, relationships, and transformational change.

In analytics, we can operationalise these into six day-to-day levers you can practice immediately.

They are not soft skills. They are strategic levers. And they are what set you apart in the moments that matter.

In today’s analytics landscape, being technically brilliant is not enough. Automation is taking over the repeatable tasks. What remains valuable is your ability to guide thinking, align people, and drive decisions. Leadership is no longer a nice-to-have. It is your career moat

Despite deep technical skill, most analytics pros stall out in their careers because they don’t master the six levers that create real strategic influence.

Anxiety about AI, fear of being replaced, and imposter syndrome are rampant, especially as technical tasks become more automated.

These six levers help you future-proof your career and move into the rare air of leadership.

Lets go!

Why Smarter People Get Passed Over and How to Make Sure You’re Not One of Them

The struggle is all too real and all too common.

We have talked about this story before ad maybe it resonates a little too closely with you…

You’re frustrated: your work is smart, thorough, and on time, yet the promotions and influential opportunities land elsewhere. Delays, missed targets, and fatigue hit your team while executives only ask for reports, not your perspective. This gap shrinks your impact and clouds your relevance, especially with automation eating away at routine tasks. In data and tech, leadership is now the real driver of career growth.

What got you here won’t get you there.

You must deliberately build the six capabilities AI can’t replicate: vision, influence, stakeholder management, executive presence, strategic judgment, and team development.

This is how you become essential, not just employable.

The template below is your blueprint to fix it all, separating technical doers from trusted leaders.

Spotlight Book: Leadership That Accelerates Your Climb

The Leadership Accelerator by Ajit Kambil is a practical playbook for stepping into a new executive role. It distils a decade of Transition Lab research into four competencies and short workout exercises you can apply immediately.

Key Learnings:

• Early wins through vision, influence, and trust build your reputation as a leader.

• Stakeholder management, executive presence, and team development are broken down into daily steps.

• Practical action plans and feedback exercises mirror the six levers (a perfect framework for aspiring new analytics managers).

Why This Book?
All-action, no-fluff. Kambil’s guide helps you avoid the busy-but-stuck trap, sharpen your impact, and make your team (and career) thrive.

Highly recommended for anyone climbing the Analytics Ladder.

Below, I translate Kambil’s four competencies into six practical levers for analytics work.

Use them to demonstrate you can manage time, talent, relationships and change in the moments that matter..

The Six Levers in Analytics Leadership

As you can see we broke out Relationships into 3 seperate levers - that is likely a good reflection of the importance of learning to deal with people.

Fieldwork: Turn Insight Into Influence

Ok, your turn.

Pick one of the four below - whichever fits your current career tempo - and put it in motion this week.

Option 1: The Leadership Field Test (Real-World Application)

Goal: Turn reflection into evidence.

How it works:

1. Pick one lever (e.g., Influence or Exec Presence).

2. Apply it deliberately in your next meeting or deliverable this week.

3. Afterward, document what changed; the reaction, the tone, the outcome.

4. Share that micro-case in your Evidence Binder or internal Slack.

Why it works: It reframes learning as experimentation, not theory. You collect proof of influence — data that compounds into your leadership portfolio.

Option 2: The Visibility Ledger Entry (Career Proof Exercise)

Goal: Turn insight into promotable assets.

How it works:

1. Choose one lever that naturally connects to business impact (Vision, Stakeholder Management, Strategic Judgment).

2. Write a two-sentence “before/after” note on how your use of that lever changed a project outcome.

3. Add it to your Visibility Ledger, the running document you use for reviews, promotions, and LinkedIn stories.

Why it works: The lever becomes measurable career capital. You start building a repository of leadership proof, not just output logs.

Option 3: The Mirror Drill (Introspective Recalibration)

Goal: Translate the six levers into self-awareness.

How it works:

1. Score yourself 1-5 across all six levers.

2. Ask a trusted peer or manager to score you too.

3. Compare notes. Where the gap is largest, that’s your growth edge.

4. Design one experiment this week to narrow that gap.

Why it works: Self-perception vs observed behaviour is the fastest diagnostic of leadership maturity. It surfaces blind spots before they stall you.

Option 4: The Leader’s Roundtable (Community Activation)

Goal: Turn the Ladder into conversation capital.

How it works:

1. Send this issue to one peer who’s also hungry for growth.

2. Ask: “Which of these six levers do you think I use best — and which one do I ignore?”

3. Discuss your answers over coffee or Slack.

4. Capture one insight and apply it next week.

Why it works: Leadership is a contact sport. You sharpen influence by creating dialogue around these ideas, not just absorbing them.

I would love to say “Thats it”. That’s all you have to do.

But it is a lot, and you have to step up to the plate. Only action will change your trajectory. Targeted action.

-Jasmine

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