alt Hacker NewsGiven enough soft skills, you can persuade your boss that what you are doing is important, and help him/her represent the department as uncovering and proactively addressing an important issue. Ideally it should align well with the boss's boss agenda.
For sure, but sometimes what you or I think should be important really isn't in the grand scheme of things. An example could be focusing on cost or efficiency - generally very reasonable things to care about - but if all a company cares about right now is growth at all costs, then that focus would be wrong. This can happen - the company leadership might see a market that they absolutely must enter and be dominant in no matter the cost. That may not filter down well 3-4 layers of management; so the soft skill in that instance would be in sussing out what several layers of management above you actually care about and surfacing to them things that align with those concerns.