It is quite common to have a different perspective from our managers and want to find effective ways to speak up to alter outcomes. Toeing the line between skillfully influencing regardless of your position and not overstepping in a way that disrespects your leader and damages your reputation can be tricky. When we can hone the skill of managing up, we can make a positive difference in our teams and in our organizations.
Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter defines managing up as the process of consciously working with your superior to obtain the best possible results for you, your boss, and the company. It is a way of customizing your work style to best suit your managers for optimum collective success. It can also refer to your tactics to build a strong relationship with your boss to make work easier. Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal writes, "Managing up, or building smooth, productive relationships with higher-ups, requires understanding and adapting to your boss’s communication and decision-making style.” Clearly, the approach you take to manage up matters.
Mastering this skill has copious benefits. You can effectively shape the agenda by better advocating for what you want, asking for resources, and promoting your team’s successes. The organization benefits as well. When you have a strong relationship with your manager and know a good method to be heard, you can achieve more win-wins. Instead of contributing to a culture of silence where people do not voice their views, you can create a conduit for great ideas to see the light of day. Organizations want people who can vigorously campaign on behalf of their team with excellent intentions to impact productivity, morale, and retention positively.
Choosing when to speak up is not always easy and straightforward. Here are some situations that could be helpful to chime in:
1. When it is at the cost of the company’s mission and integrity. If something is happening that is damaging the company’s reputation internally or externally, it can be essential to get involved. If you know that corners are being cut and there is a negative impact on customers or other stakeholders, your manager will want to know this.
2. When your motives are genuine. If you have already checked in with yourself and ruled out jealousy or other less envious motives, and it is really about the benefit to the team, organization, or stakeholders, it is a good time to manage up to share constructive concerns collaboratively.
3. When you have established trust and credibility. When you have shown yourself to be a dependable person that delivers consistent, timely, and excellent quality work, you will be in a good position to manage up. If you are not a model of what you seek, your message will be harder to convey and be heard. This reminds me of Jordan Peterson’s rule 6: set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. While I disagree with the word perfect, the underlining sentiment of being an example of what you are trying to change is powerful. Nobody wants to listen to somebody who cannot do the thing they are advocating.
4. When there are massive communication gaps. You may have assumptions that your boss has a view of you that is inaccurate. You may want to check in, clear the air, and frame the perception that more precisely depicts who you are instead of them filling in the gaps so you can speak up and align on a shared reality. I had a client who was working on a massive project, culminating in a pivotal stakeholder meeting where a decision had to be made. When the boss viewed the invite list, she said the list looked random and did not understand why some attendees were present. My client wanted to take a moment to zoom out and inform her leader of the broader picture, that she had been talking to all those stakeholders regularly and had an excellent explanation for each person’s attendance. Having that conversation to loop her boss in was essential because while they may have initially thought my client was careless in their selection, they were, in fact, deliberate.
5. When it is for the leader’s benefit. Business management expert Patrick Lencioni advocates managing up to benefit the leader. He said, “do not expect that the manager is leading exactly the way they want.” He shared a story of when a direct report came to him as a great example of managing up. Lencioni promoted somebody who was not team-oriented, which violated one of the company values. So, the direct report went to Lencioni and said, I know you have a lot on your plate, but I noticed an inconsistency that I wanted to share and learn more about the reasoning behind the decision. You talk about teamwork being important but just promoted the least teamwork-focused person, so I think to address the disconnection, we either should change what we believe or move him to another place where he would be a better fit. Lencioni shared that he was happy to have that blind spot bought to his attention and believed that if you only hear about frustrations when your team hands you a resignation letter, it is unfair because it does not give the leader a chance to course correct.
Another client of mine had a similar situation speaking up regarding their boss’ blind spot. The boss would think out loud at meetings and share fleeting comments to the team about possibly doing more research. Some team members would interpret those passing thoughts as requests, and a couple of people would work on the same project and waste time and resources. Others would view those thoughts as just verballing processing and would not do anything and the boss would wonder why no action was taken. So, my client shared this observation with their boss, “I noticed this phenomenon happening where your verbal brainstorming is creating confusion and might be wasting time, I’m wondering what if, at the end of a meeting, we share one thing to investigate and one person to do that so there is clarity and no overlap? How would that work for you, or what would you add to reduce the confusion?” Before sharing your idea, you can even invite your boss to share possible solutions before you offer yours. This is a great topic to manage up because you are proposing a process change to improve the business and inviting a co-creating experience.
When NOT to manage up:
1. Personality difference with no business benefit. If you simply do not like your manager’s style and changing it would make your life easier but have no positive impact on the business or other team members, then it is misusing the spirit of managing up. For example, if you want your manager to be more optimistic and less realistic because that is your preference, you may be unable to change that. It is good to ask yourself, how is my request impacting the business other than it’s annoying me? If their approach is leading to hours wasted, unnecessary confusion, and a lack of direction for you and the team, that’s different. Tapping into the bigger reason we are here and how we can align to make the business successful is a good guide to managing up.
2. You think you can be leading better. You may believe you can do the job better than your manager, many of us feel that way from time to time and that can be ok, but when you take action to undermine your boss or try to win or be right at your boss’s expense, that is crossing the line. To be successful at your job, it is helpful to support your leader publicly and make them look good rather than asserting your will. And if you believe you can do a better job, great, do your best to get promoted based on the quality of your work and your integrity and when you get that promotion, you will get a chance to lead in the way you want, and your direct reports will follow you based on your style and the benefits that you deliver.
When you can learn the skill of managing up, it will make you a more effective contributor. The best indicator of managing up is when there is a triple win – you win, your manager/team wins, and the company wins.
Quote of the day: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer.
Q: When was the last time you had to manage up? What worked that you would want to repeat? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!
The next blog in this series 2/6 will focus on helpful prework to do to manage up.
As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to sharpen their managing up skills, contact me to explore this topic further.
How do you manage up?