Seven email openers that sound like the person in charge

Six days have passed, and your message is still sitting unopened in his inbox. You open a reply and write "Just checking in on this!" with an exclamation point, hoping to sound relaxed. You are not relaxed. The exclamation point gives it away. The follow-up restates the original, preceded by a line conceding that the first attempt landed poorly.

"Just checking in" asks for nothing, proposes nothing and sets no deadline. It comes across as a gentle poke from someone unsure she is permitted to poke. Someone who holds authority rarely sends a message like that. She states what comes next. Seven openers follow, spread across five situations, that carry that same confidence.

1. Nudging a request that no one has yet replied to

Feeble: "Just checking in on this!"

Firmer: "Flagging that I need your sign-off by Thursday to hold the vendor date." Or: "Bringing this back up. Unless I hear from you by Friday, I'll proceed with option B."

Why it works: both lines pair a date with a consequence. The first lightens the reader's load. The second turns silence into a choice he is making in writing, which is not the same thing as simply not replying.

2. Requesting time with a senior leader

Feeble: "I'd love to pick your brain sometime if you have a spare minute."

Firmer: "I have one question about the Q1 pricing decision. Twenty minutes next week?"

This version lays out the subject, how long it will take and when it has to happen. Executives usually say yes to a request with clear edges, while an open-ended one gets set aside, because it first demands that they define its scope before they can decline it.

3. Sending work for review

"Apologies for the intrusion, here's a draft, and do share any thoughts you have!"

Better: "Here is the draft for your look." I'd value your take on the pricing section only; everything else is already locked in."

"Any thoughts" effectively opens the door to a full rewrite. Pointing to one section gets a decision on that section, which is what you actually need, and it arrives far faster.

4. Delivering news nobody wants

There's been a hold-up, and I regret the inconvenience it causes.

The launch has been pushed to the 14th. The integration fell short when put under heavy load testing, and that is what caused the problem. A fix is underway, and I'll report back Monday. Or, for a fuller update: "Two things you should know and one decision I need from you."

The apologetic phrasing makes the reader handle your emotions before they've grasped the facts. The plain version supplies the outcome, the reason, the next step and the timeline, so the reader can forward it upward without edits.

5. Declining a request you're unable to fulfill

Feeble: "I'm so sorry, I'm completely swamped right now, but maybe later?"

Firmer: "I can't take this on this week. Lena has both the bandwidth and the background, and I've copied her in."

A refusal that comes with a next step functions as a handoff rather than a dismissal. You addressed the sender's actual need, which is the only reason they reached out, and you did so without a paragraph about your schedule.

The rule running through all seven of these.

In a message from a leader, the first two lines should convey what the email is about, what the reader must do, and the deadline. Once those three elements are there, you can strip out every "just," every "sorry" and every exclamation point that was softening the message. Nobody reading it will judge you as curt. They will think you were busy, which, like most people in Baltimore's workforce these days, you probably are.

Forward this to the colleague in your Baltimore or Greater Baltimore office who recently sent "just checking in" to a client.