What is a Stakeholder Matrix?
A stakeholder matrix, also called the power-interest grid, is a tool that plots every stakeholder in a decision on two axes: their power to affect execution, and their interest in the outcome. It tells a CEO who to brief, in what order, and how much attention each group deserves right now.
Most CEOs handle this by instinct. You lead five groups who each believe they matter most and pay little attention to the others. The board wants discipline. Investors want growth. Employees want clarity. Customers want reliability. Regulators want compliance. The press wants a story. Each group is justified in what they want.
Stakeholder Mapping
After years of coaching C-suite leaders at Skyline Group International, we’ve seen even the best try to solve this by sending one generic message to everyone, which ends up pleasing no one. Most leadership advice calls this a communication problem: message better, meet more, listen harder. But that’s not the real issue. The real challenge is mapping: knowing which group you’re talking to, what matters most to them, and how much attention they deserve right now.
Why CEOs are now accountable to everyone
Stakeholder theory has been around since Edward Freeman laid it out in 1984: a company is accountable not just to shareholders, but to the full web of employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and investors who have a stake in what it does. It took corporate America three and a half decades to catch up in writing. In 2019, 181 CEOs, including the heads of Amazon, Apple, and JPMorgan Chase, signed the Business Roundtable’s statement redefining corporate purpose around exactly that wider set of obligations.
CEOs didn’t get more staff, longer days, or a guide for what to say to the board, the shop floor, or a reporter on deadline. The expectations grew, but the way of working stayed the same. Now, that gap is measured every year: the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 73% of people believe CEOs should lead on building trust across stakeholders. Only 44% think they’re doing it well, leaving a 29-point gap between expectations and results.
Why stakeholder blind spots now cost CEOs their jobs
In the past, a CEO who favored one group — strong with investors but weak with employees — could get by if the numbers looked good. That’s no longer the case. Activists are now quick to spot these weaknesses. In the first ten months of 2025, they launched a record 39 campaigns targeting CEOs, up from just five in 2018. Thirty-two CEOs resigned within a year of an activist campaign in 2025, the highest ever and a 60% increase over the previous four-year average. By mid-2026, campaign volume is already about 12% higher than last year.
The infrastructure around these campaigns has matured alongside the volume. Dedicated activist funds now run campaigns as a core strategy rather than an occasional play, and proxy advisors such as ISS and Glass Lewis give institutional holders a ready framework for deciding whether to back one. The groups you overlook are no longer just a minor issue. They’re exactly what activists look for.
Where the stakeholder matrix came from
The power-interest grid (Mendelow, 1991)
The tool that helps with this isn’t new. Aubrey Mendelow introduced the power-interest grid in 1991, and Johnson and Scholes’ Exploring Corporate Strategy made it widely known. You plot each stakeholder on two axes: their power to affect your execution, and their current interest in the decision. An institutional investor might be high-power and low-interest during a normal quarter, then move to high-power and high-interest the moment you announce an acquisition. The stakeholder matrix gives you a real-time view for each decision, not a fixed org chart.
Used well, it does two things. It helps you decide who to brief first — high-power, high-interest stakeholders get the news before they hear it elsewhere. And it reveals which group you might be neglecting, often the one that didn’t help you advance.
The salience model alternative (Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997)
Mendelow isn’t the only model. Mitchell, Agle and Wood proposed a three-attribute alternative in 1997 — power, legitimacy, and urgency — which asks who deserves your attention. That’s a useful question, but it still describes standing rather than the relationship itself. On its own, either framework tells you who to watch, not what’s actually happening with them.
What the power-interest grid misses: relationship strength
Here’s the part most stakeholder advice misses. Power and interest tell you what a stakeholder could do. They tell you nothing about what that stakeholder is actually doing.
Two board members might both be high-power and high-interest and still need opposite responses — one trusts you and wants regular updates, the other has turned skeptical and needs attention before the next meeting. The stakeholder matrix can’t tell them apart on power and interest alone, and many leaders wrongly assume high interest means support. It doesn’t. A stakeholder can be deeply engaged and entirely against you, and in our experience that’s what costs CEOs their jobs — not the ones who quietly disengage.
Relationship strength — supportive, neutral, or resistant — is the third score we add to Mendelow’s model. It rests on four signals, reviewed every board cycle rather than once a year.
The four signals we track
Advocacy in your absence
Advocacy in your absence is whether a stakeholder defends your decision to others when you aren’t in the room. Silence where support used to be is the first signal to move, and it’s the easiest one to miss, because nothing visibly happens.
Off-cycle information requests
Off-cycle information requests are requests for detail outside the normal reporting rhythm. They indicate the stakeholder no longer trusts the update they’re getting on schedule — if the scheduled report were doing its job, the off-cycle request wouldn’t exist.
Lateral escalation
Lateral escalation is when a stakeholder routes concerns to someone other than you — the audit committee chair, a peer investor, another executive. If the board chair starts copying the audit committee chair on requests that used to come only to you, that isn’t an oversight. It’s a second opinion being gathered about you.
Specificity drift
Specificity drift is the shift from general questions (“how’s it going”) to pointed ones (“show me the numbers”). In our experience it appears roughly two quarters before a conflict becomes public, which makes it the earliest of the four signals and the most useful one to catch.
The stakeholder matrix applied: a restructuring example
This changes how you sequence. The standard grid tells you to brief high-power, high-interest stakeholders first. We sequence by power and resistance instead: the stakeholder who can hurt you most and is already pulling away gets your attention before the announcement, regardless of how engaged they appear.
Here’s the pattern we’ve seen play out across clients working through similar decisions, composited below with details changed for confidentiality. A CEO is about to announce a restructuring that closes an underperforming plant.
*Table: Stakeholder matrix example — a restructuring that closes an underperforming plant.
Why the briefing order changes
Look only at power and interest, and three of these stakeholders appear equally important, which doesn’t help you prioritize. Add the signals and the order changes quickly.
The board chair’s lateral escalation is the urgent issue, and it has to be addressed before the announcement rather than after — a chair who goes around the CEO is already making a case to someone else. The city council, which the basic grid tells you to monitor and otherwise ignore, moves up the list because an unscheduled request tied to press interest is specificity drift, which usually precedes a public dispute. The Head of Sales gets an early, honest update because she’s already spending her own credibility on the plan. The activist investor gets a direct call on the usual schedule — engaged and sharper, but still coming to the CEO rather than bypassing them, which is the difference between a stakeholder to manage and one to worry about.
You won’t see this order if you only look at power and interest. It becomes clear only when you track what each stakeholder is doing, not just what they could do.
How to apply the stakeholder matrix
- Plot power and interest for this decision. Not for the org chart — for the specific announcement, acquisition, or restructuring in front of you. Positions move.
- Score relationship strength: supportive, neutral, or resistant. Use the four signals above, not your impression of the last conversation.
- Sequence by who’s high-power and resistant. That’s your first call, before the people who are merely interested.
- Update the matrix every board cycle, not once a year. Specificity drift shows up about two quarters early. An annual review misses it entirely.
The real skill isn’t pleasing everyone
It’s being clear to people who disagree with you. A board member, an employee, and a regulator might all leave the same announcement with different opinions, but each should trust that you were honest and delivered the truth in a form that fits how they process information. That’s a far more realistic goal than getting everyone to agree — and it’s the core of what we teach as Influencing Others, one of the Leading Others competencies in the Skyline 360.
Draw the matrix. Score the relationships honestly. Update both before problems start, not after. In our work with leaders growing companies to $1B and beyond, this is what separates CEOs who see the activist letter, the resignation, or the news story coming from those who are caught off guard by all three.
Frequently asked questions
What is a stakeholder matrix?
A stakeholder matrix is a tool that plots each stakeholder in a decision on two axes: their power to affect execution and their interest in the outcome. It’s also called the power-interest grid, and it’s used to decide who to brief, in what order, and how closely to manage each relationship.
Who created the power-interest grid?
Aubrey Mendelow introduced the power-interest grid in 1991 at the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems. It reached a wider audience through Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes’ Exploring Corporate Strategy.
What’s missing from the power-interest grid?
Power and interest describe what a stakeholder can do, not what they’re currently doing. A stakeholder can be highly engaged and actively opposed to you. Skyline Group International adds a third score — relationship strength, rated supportive, neutral, or resistant — to capture that difference.
What is specificity drift?
Specificity drift is the shift in a stakeholder’s questions from general ones (“how’s it going”) to pointed ones (“show me the numbers”). It typically appears about two quarters before a conflict becomes public, which makes it an early warning rather than a reaction.
What is lateral escalation in stakeholder management?
Lateral escalation is when a stakeholder routes concerns to someone other than you — an audit committee chair, a peer investor, another executive. It indicates they’re gathering a second opinion about you rather than raising the issue directly.
How often should a CEO update their stakeholder matrix?
Every board cycle, not annually. Relationship signals move faster than a yearly review can catch, and specificity drift surfaces about two quarters before a public dispute.
About the authors
Thuy Sindell, PhD, is Co-Founder and President of the Coaching Division at Skyline Group International, where she and her team manage 180 coaches worldwide. She has been an executive coach since 1998, holds a PhD in Organizational Psychology from Alliant International University, and is co-author of Hidden Strengths: Unleashing the Crucial Leadership Skills You Already Have (Berrett-Koehler, 2015).
Sources
- 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer — Edelman
- Key Shareholder Activism Trends to Watch in 2026 — Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
- Shareholder Activism – 2026 Mid-Year Review — Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
- Ed Freeman: Meet the “Father of Stakeholder Capitalism” — Harvard Business School Institute for Business in Global Society
- Mendelow, A. (1991). “Stakeholder Mapping.” Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Systems, Cambridge, MA — popularized via Johnson, G. & Scholes, K., Exploring Corporate Strategy (3rd ed., 1993)
- Mitchell, R., Agle, B. & Wood, D. (1997). “Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience.” Academy of Management Review
