A structured framework for mapping the people who shape your leadership — where they sit, how connected you are, and where the gaps are before the transition reveals them.
Designed for leaders in complex organizations. This framework is built for leaders operating inside large, matrixed, or multi-level organizations — where influence is distributed, access is layered, and relationships shape outcomes in ways that are rarely visible from one vantage point. If your organization is smaller or leaner, the map will look different — but the questions it surfaces are no less relevant.
Know the strength of your network.
Know who is in your corner.
Before you need them.
Most leaders have a network. Few have mapped it honestly.
This tool gives you the framework — the language and the structure — to see your network as it actually is. Not as you hope it is. Not as it once was.
Work through each section carefully. The framework is simple. What it surfaces is not.
This map works best when you are honest. Place people where the relationship actually sits today — not where it once was, not where you hope it will be. A relationship that went cold three years ago is not an active relationship. An untested connection is not a reliable one.
Use this framework before a transition begins — or at the very start of one. The earlier you map, the more time you have to act on what you find.
A partially mapped network — four people placed across rings, with relationship type and connection strength shown.
Names, relationship types, and connection symbols placed across rings
Each ring represents proximity and interaction — not hierarchy or importance. Someone in Ring 4 may have more influence over your future than anyone in Ring 2. The ring tells you where they sit. The connection symbol tells you where you stand with them.
Proximity and interaction — not hierarchy or importance
If something is already surfacing before you go further — the conversation is the right next step.
Not everyone in your network plays the same role. The six types below map the distinct ways people shape your leadership — or work against it.
Tag each person with one code. Use the dominant role if a relationship spans more than one.
A Sponsor and a Mentor are not the same. A mentor develops you. A sponsor bets their reputation on you. Most leaders overestimate how many sponsors they actually have.
The distinction matters most during transitions — when the people who speak for you in rooms you are not in determine more than anything you do yourself.
Every relationship in your network has a direction and a strength. The symbols below let you mark both — next to each person's name on your map.
Score each connection as it actually is today. Not as it was. Not as you hope it will be.
The gap between where you think a connection sits and where it actually sits is where most integration failures begin. The map is only useful if it reflects reality.
Most leaders discover they have more one-way connections than they thought — and fewer strong mutual ones. That asymmetry is where the depth work begins.
Use these symbols on your map alongside each person's name.
Score as it is today. The map is a mirror — not an aspiration.
The rings show where people sit. Connection symbols show the strength of the line. Health dimensions show what the line is actually made of.
Four questions. Score each relationship honestly — as it actually is today.
The pattern across all four tells you more than any single score. A relationship with high trust and low recency is a very different thing from one with low trust and high recency.
Score each person on all four dimensions when you do the mapping. The pattern across dimensions tells you more than any single score.
High trust and low recency is one of the most common patterns. The relationship is real — but it has been left unattended. That gap closes faster than most leaders think.
A completed map is only useful if you read it honestly. The patterns matter more than any individual relationship. What you are looking for is not who you know — but where the gaps are, and what those gaps are costing you.
Most leaders discover their map is thinner than they assumed.
The relationships they rely on tend to be concentrated in one ring. One departure and the network thins.
Ring 4 is almost always underinvested. The people with the most influence over your future are often the ones who do not know you exist.
The gap between where you think a connection sits and where it actually sits is where most integration failures begin.
What a completed Gap Radar looks like — fictional names, real patterns.
The framework you have just worked through gives you language for something most leaders navigate without it. The rings. The types. The health dimensions. The gaps.
But language is not the same as clarity. You can name a gap and still not see it fully — because the patterns in your network are shaped by patterns in you. Who you invest in. Who you avoid. Who you assume is there when they aren't.
Most leaders who do this work honestly find one relationship they have been avoiding naming. One ring that is almost empty. One gap that has been there for longer than they realised.
Seeing it is not the same as knowing what to do with it. That is what the conversation is for.
The people with the most influence over your future are often in Ring 4. Do they know you — and more importantly, do they know what you actually contribute? That gap doesn’t close on its own. It closes when someone who knows you both opens the door — which means the relationship you actually need to build first is with the person who can bridge you there.
Something surfaced as you worked through this. You can already feel which part.
Maybe it's a ring that's almost empty. A relationship you've been meaning to tend. Someone who has influence over your future and doesn't know you exist.
That's not a to-do list problem. It's a perspective problem. And it's harder to solve alone than it looks from inside it.
Book the Conversation →Stay close to the work. Subscribe to Integration Blueprint →