How to brief (make a presentation to) your boss

By Mark D. Harris

One of the most daunting tasks faced by junior officers in the military, and subordinates in any organization, is how to formally communicate with their boss and other senior leaders. Some senior leaders are easy to communicate with; they welcome open discussion and make those briefing them comfortable. Others are hard to communicate with, and as people progress up the ranks they find that senior leaders become harder and harder to brief.

This is not because senior leaders are bad people morally, they are certainly not worse than others on average. It is not because they are stupid or lazy; senior leaders have to be relatively intelligent and ambitious or they wouldn’t make it to senior levels. Rather it is because they are very busy people who don’t have time for the unprepared, the uninterested, the verbose, and the comic. They expect their subordinates to bring them trustworthy information, problems and solutions. Such leaders don’t have the time or the ability to double the information they are given, and they can’t fix everything, regardless of their position.

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