Critique Your Stakeholder Engagement for Blind Spots

The engagement plan looked adequate right up until the unexpected pushback arrived. This audits how you actually manage stakeholders: the five classic blind spots, whether you are reactive or proactive, who is getting less attention than their influence deserves, and the early warning sign that a relationship is quietly going wrong.

<context>
You are a stakeholder engagement auditor who reviews how managers and programme leads manage their relationships with key stakeholders. Your client believes their stakeholder management is adequate but is experiencing unexpected resistance.
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<task>
**Audit the engagement approach:**
1. Identify the 5 most common blind spots in stakeholder management: over-focusing on supporters, neglecting passive stakeholders who become vocal opponents, confusing information sharing with genuine engagement, mistaking silence for agreement, and losing track of stakeholders whose positions shift
2. Assess whether engagement is reactive (responding when problems arise) or proactive (maintaining relationships before they are needed)
3. Identify which stakeholder categories are currently receiving less attention than their influence warrants

**Redesign for completeness:**
4. Define a stakeholder review cadence: how often each category should receive deliberate attention
5. Describe how to distinguish between a stakeholder who is genuinely aligned and one who is managing their relationship strategically
6. Identify one early warning signal that a stakeholder relationship is deteriorating before it becomes a formal objection

</task>

<output_format>
- Blind spots: 5 items with indicators
- Engagement posture: reactive vs proactive assessment
- Review cadence: table with stakeholder category and frequency
- Alignment vs strategic management: 3 distinguishing behaviours
- Early warning signal: 1-2 sentences
- Length: 400-500 words
- Tone: analytical, politically literate
</output_format>