How can testers break into leadership and influence quality at a higher level?

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Check out my article with Ministry of Testing, ā€œFrom tester to decision-maker: carving your path in quality leadership,ā€ which explores the challenges and opportunities for testers looking to break into leadership roles.

As test leadership positions become increasingly rare, this article highlights how testers can build influence, advocate for better testing processes, and position themselves as strategic leadersā€”even without a formal title.

For those seeking to move beyond test execution and shape the future of quality in their organizations, this article offers key insights and actionable takeaways.

What youā€™ll learn:

  • How to move beyond test execution and take on a strategic role in shaping organizational quality
  • Understand why test leadership roles are becoming less common and discover ways to navigate career growth despite these changes
  • Gain insights into breaking into decision-making spaces, advocating for quality, and driving meaningful change within their teams
  • See the importance of having test leaders at the table and how their presence affects engineering teams and product development
  • Explore practical strategies for developing leadership skills, driving improvements, and positioning themselves for career advancement in quality engineering

After reading, share your thoughts:

  • Have you ever struggled to get leadership buy-in for quality initiatives?
  • What challenges have you faced in moving from tester to decision-maker?
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All the time! :joy: Iā€™m not at director level Quality influencer, but Iā€™m the closest my small organisation has to one, being the QA Lead. However, influencing quality initiatives is a way of life for me. You donā€™t give up, you learn how to influence different people, differently. If you donā€™t get buy-in from day one, understand why and if you still believe in your ideas, think of a new way to influence the discussion and/or explaining the risk.

The 2 biggest challenges I face are:

  • Budget - Iā€™m no budget holder so I rely on getting approval if Ā£Ā£ are involved. If the budget ainā€™t there, it ainā€™t there. So you got go back to the drawing board to see if there are alternative approaches.
  • Priority - Old habits are very difficult break and new habits are very difficult to make. So youā€™re idea may be revolutionary to the quality outcomes, but to influence people you may need to chunk them up into smaller phases so make gradual improvements to the end goal. Even if its received well, making big process/tool changes can been seen as a delay to work in progress.
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Every software testing professional across the globe is nodding away to this. :rofl:

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Breaking into leadership as a tester isnā€™t always about a title, but influence, initiative and persistence.
One of the biggest challenge i have faced was making my voice heard in meetings where testing wasnā€™t the main agenda, I learned that data speaks louder than opinions-so instead of just pointing out risks, I started presenting metrics on defects trends,missed edge cases and imoact of release cycles.

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I find myself in the strange position of not having a leadership role but being able to shift/suggest/create change in my organization. I donā€™t have quite a seat at the table (being invited to the higher level meetings) but I have the unique role of speaking for quality in our engineering team.

My challenge right now is identifying where the quality gaps are and where the testing knowledge gaps are on the engineering team. I started a conversation with the developers asking the question if they felt like they had the knowledge to test what they were building. The results remain to be seen, but we are starting to have the conversation, which is a win for me. Finding solutions and getting those solutions actualized will be the next ones.

Great article @thetestchick! Love it.

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I listened to a great webinar today about leadership and some of the notes I made sound like good ideas for trying to break into leadership:

  • Spot gaps and see if you can offer solutions
  • Change happens when you have relationships with key decision makers
  • Be visible within your org
  • Understand what the key metrics are in your org. Quantify how your changes will affect key metrics
  • Where can you add value?

I think what stood out to me is understanding what your organisation considers a key metric and seeing how you can provide value in a way that postively affects that key metric.

These are definitely the things Iā€™ll be looking to do in my next role.

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In plain words, I had to make a fuss out of it. My advantage is that my manager is all ears for when it comes to improving quality and reducing development time. And those are exactly the cases I make when I want to have something improved in the process.

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I have often found that understanding the main business priorities, and then finding ways to connect those to quality initiatives, is a great way to facilitate change in the quality space.
QA professionals are too often focussed on the details of engineering process - which is important! - and donā€™t try to understand why the top leaders in their company donā€™t want to free up budget for a new tool or training on a new methodology. Often this reluctance is directly connected to the fact that they donā€™t see how this new < thing > will improve the business outcome, and if we canā€™t demonstrate that (smart metrics work well here) itā€™s going to be an uphill battle.

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Have you ever struggled to get leadership buy-in for quality initiatives?

Yes, I have faced challenges in getting leadership buy-in for quality initiatives. One of the most common obstacles is the tendency for quality to be treated as a secondary concern compared to other aspects like product delivery or feature development. There have been times when critical decisions about testing tools, environments, or resources were made without involving the testing team, resulting in inefficiencies that affected the overall quality of the product.

For example, I once worked in a situation where our testing environments were unreliable, which impacted the efficiency of both manual and automated testing. Although we raised concerns, it was difficult to get leadership to prioritize this issue at first. The turning point came when I was able to present a well-structured business case demonstrating how this lack of a stable test environment was not just a testing issue, but a bottleneck affecting the entire product development lifecycle. Once we framed the issue in terms of business outcomesā€”such as the potential to reduce delays and improve the speed of delivery, the leadership was more open to making changes.

What challenges have you faced in moving from tester to decision-maker?

Moving from a tester to a decision-maker in quality engineering comes with its unique set of challenges. One of the biggest challenges I faced was the shift in perspective. As a tester, your focus is on finding issues and improving the quality of the product. But as a leader, you must expand your focus to the entire team, the development process, and how quality fits into the broader business strategy.

In the early stages of my career, I was pushing for quality improvements at a basic level, trying to rally my peers and convince management to adopt certain practices. While this was effective in some cases, I found that the decisions that could make a lasting impact often required higher-level buy-in. As I moved into leadership, I had to develop a broader understanding of cross-team collaboration, business priorities, and long-term strategic thinking.

For example, when trying to address the unreliable testing environments I mentioned earlier, the solution required not just technical expertise but the ability to navigate cross-functional conversations, secure budgets, and gain a general agreement from stakeholders across the company. This was a major jump from the hands-on testing role I was in to, but it was also rewarding to see the direct impact leadership decisions can have on the teamā€™s success and the quality of the product as a whole.

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To make an impact and step into leadership, a tester needs to understand every corner of the project. There should be something unique they know that others might not , something that becomes their strength and identity within the team.

With that deep knowledge, testers should take an active role in brainstorming sessions. They should communicate regularly with developers to understand challenges, share workarounds, and collaborate on solutions. It is equally important to discuss user journeys and workflows with product managers to stay aligned with the vision.

When issues come up , as they often do , the focus should not be on proving who is right. Instead, choose to handle it calmly and professionally through open and respectful conversations.

Testers start moving toward leadership when their ideas begin to get noticed, not just their presence. But technical skills alone are not enough. Strong communication and writing skills are just as essential. These skills help you explain ideas clearly, influence decisions, and bring change ā€” because real impact often begins with the right words.

Lastly problem solving skills is now crucial for such goals because if testing is all about clicking the dropdown or inputs and close the tickets based on that then ai tools can also do that.

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