Executive update brief

Skill stephenrogan/leadership-skills/skills/executive-update-brief

Agent Skills-compatible leadership and manager workflow library

Install

npx -y skills add stephenrogan/leadership-skills --skill executive-update-brief

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Creates an executive-ready update brief with headline narrative, evidence, risks, decisions needed, owner asks, and anticipated questions. Use for exec staff updates, QBRs, board prep, steering meetings, or when leaders need concise upward communication.

The file declares its own license as MIT. That is the author’s claim about this one file, and it is not the same thing as the license GitHub reports for the repository, which is listed with the other numbers below.

SKILL.md

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Executive Update Brief

Overview

Use this skill to support the leader as Executive communicator. A brief that tells executives what changed, why it matters, and what decision or support is needed.

This skill is human-led by design: the agent prepares the work, but the human leader owns judgment, relationship, accountability, and final decisions.

When to Use

Run this skill when:

Executive update is due
A metric moved and needs explanation
Leader needs support, air cover, or a decision from above

Do not use it as a substitute for legal, HR, finance, security, medical, or executive approval. If the workflow affects employment, compensation, customer commitments, external messaging, or sensitive personal data, prepare the packet and stop for human review.

Inputs

Ask for or gather:

Metrics and trend changes
Strategic context and prior commitments
Risks, mitigations, and decision asks
Audience priorities and likely questions

If inputs are missing, proceed with explicit assumptions and label confidence. Do not invent private context, motives, or facts.

Workflow

Follow this sequence:

Start with the executive headline, not background
Support every claim with evidence or mark it as hypothesis
Separate update, risk, and decision ask
Add anticipated questions and crisp answers
End with owner, timeline, and requested decision

Before finalizing, run the boundary check: what is evidence, what is interpretation, what is a recommendation, and what must remain a human decision?

Output Format

Produce a concise, decision-ready artifact using this structure:

# Executive Update Brief

## Situation
[Brief context and why this workflow is being run.]

## Evidence and Signals
- Fact:
- Pattern:
- Hypothesis, confidence:

## Recommended Focus
1. [Highest leverage focus]
2. [Second focus]
3. [Third focus, optional]

## Working Artifact
[Agenda, memo, brief, plan, map, script, or tracker depending on the workflow.]

## Human Decisions Required
- [Decision/action the agent must not take.]

## Follow-Up
- Owner:
- Date:
- Success signal:

Expected deliverables:

Executive brief
Decision ask block
Risk/mitigation summary
FAQ and objection prep

See assets/output-template.md for a reusable version.

Human Decision Boundary

The agent may prepare, synthesize, compare, draft, and track. The agent must not cross these boundaries:

Do not over-polish weak evidence into certainty
Do not make external claims or commitments
Leader owns tone, accountability, and sensitive framing

Stop and ask for explicit approval before sending messages, changing employment status, making customer promises, publishing, sharing sensitive information, or committing budget/resources.

Quality Bar

A strong output for this skill:

Separates facts, interpretations, hypotheses, and recommendations.
Names uncertainty and missing context instead of hiding it.
Produces an artifact a busy leader can use immediately.
Reduces avoidance, ambiguity, rework, or decision drift.
Makes the human judgment boundary visible.
Includes concrete follow-up with owner, date, and success signal where applicable.

Failure Modes

Watch for these mistakes:

Overconfident claims from thin notes or sentiment.
Generic management advice with no artifact.
Automating sensitive judgment instead of preparing it.
Producing too many options without a recommended default.
Treating leadership as text generation rather than accountability.

References

Barbara Minto, Pyramid Principle
Amazon narrative memo practice
Executive communication best practices

For the shared methodology spine, see ../../docs/SOURCE-SPINE.md.