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While traditional management emphasizes a select few leading subordinates, mostly everybody is in a position to manage up and effectively work with superiors – yet, this is often overlooked and underemphasized.
What Is Managing Up?
In short, it’s managing your manager. Proactively anticipate needs, provide solutions and recommendations to problems, understand their top priorities and align your time and energy towards high-impact initiatives.
Here are some tips that I’ve learned over my career to help manage up much more effectively. This has led to better relationships, more visibility, and improved sustainability.
Take Time to Understand Their Social Style
Their social style will help guide how they best understand information and how they prefer to be communicated with.
This can be difficult especially if there are stark contrasts between you and your boss.
For example, I once had a boss who had mandatory 8:45am in-person meetings daily where each person on the team reviewed their to-do items for the day. Personally, I thought that it created too much of a checklist/task-driven culture and didn’t take the meetings very seriously. I also thought it was a bit micro manag-y for my working style.
I wasn’t shy about my thoughts and my lack of preparation or seriousness showed that, and in hindsight, even though my original net takeaway still stands, I could have done a much better job of maneuvering the situation by providing recommendations versus just complaining about the situation. But I was in my 20s and wasn’t at that point yet.
I’ve learned from that, though. And I suppose I’ve gained a little wisdom from that and other past experiences.
In reporting to a CEO with a busy travel schedule across time zones, his sales and client management background, and his preference for synchronous communication, phone calls prove more effective than emails that might get buried in his inbox. Additionally, the 14-year age gap between us might influence his communication style, making calls a more natural fit. In most cases, I prefer emails. But I’ve learned from my past mistakes of not managing social styles accordingly and commonly put 15 minutes on the books for quick check-ins throughout the week.
I position the calls to focus on top priorities often in 24 or 48-hour increments to help keep things focused. Then, recap what I’ll do to support those priorities, and provide other recommendations where applicable. This caters to his personality type. Thus, I get what I need much more effectively. And we can work towards a “net” more quickly.
It also allows us to focus more on the end result versus all of the details. The latter is something that I manage with my team. And since the preference for him is to be 30,000 feet up, I like to position the conversations that way. And it’s better for everybody that way.
Align on Priorities to Guide Time Allocation
Leadership personnel have a lot going on and can throw a lot at you. And at times, you may have several items on your todo list that they may not even know about. So in instances where you’re feeling overwhelmed, the best thing you can do for yourself and to help your boss understand your workload, is to clarify the priorities.
By understanding where their priorities stand, your priorities naturally become a lot clearer. In other words, work on the things that matter the most and ideally get approval on a stack ranked list from your boss that you recommend. This shows that you understand what’s important and are making a recommendation that ideally makes their lives easier. So instead of expecting them to tell you the things to do and the order in which to do it, you acknowledge that you already know and simply get their approval. To somebody in a management role, this is invaluable.
Be flexible and adaptable in managing your workload to ensure that key objectives are met.
For Every Problem, Provide Solutions
It’s best to avoid lobbing problems over the fence. Instead, suggest solutions to the roadblocks that you’re facing.
One of the CEOs that I reported to gave me this framework. The screenshot of her email is still saved to my desktop.
- Context/situation (execs are busy and aren’t as familiar with the details as you are)
- Implication(s)
- Recommendation(s)
- Questions
Undoubtedly, spotting problems is important, but almost anybody can do that. To add the most value, taking things further by presenting higher-ups with potential solutions makes solving the problem more actionable and realistic versus adding another task to somebody else’s list. It also puts you in a consultative role that helps build trust.
One of my peers once shared a story that if somebody provided a problem in a meeting and didn’t offer any solutions, they were asked to leave the meeting. They had a rule - for every problem or roadblock, provide three recommendations.
Maybe that hard-and-fast rule is a little harsh, but the muscles these types of activities build are beneficial to growth. It’s natural to get stuck and if you challenge yourself and the answer still isn’t clear, people can tell when you’ve tried and will likely give grace.
Spend Your Energy Making It Happen Versus Seeking Roadblocks
Most of us have come across naysayers who would rather spend their energy and time thinking about why things won’t work, versus finding solutions for why certain things can work. The role of devil’s advocate is necessary, but this scenario isn’t that.
I am a proponent of dialogue and constructively challenging each other’s thoughts. But let’s not let minor roadblocks be the reason we don’t test and try new things.
Work in Phases Versus Complaining
Does everything really have to get done right now? Based on the highest impact items on your agenda, break your work into phases and get their buy-in. This shows that you’re thinking about your contributions at a macro level and provides your boss with a solution. If you’re in the client-facing world and getting bombarded, managing client expectations in a similar fashion will help make your life a lot easier.
Don’t Sit Around and Wait to Be Told What to Do
As noted earlier, the best employees make their boss’ lives easier. By discussing priorities more often, you can suggest ideas for how you can support key initiatives. Proactiveness and bringing ideas to the table are some of the most helpful characteristics for any boss.
Benefits of Managing Up
All of this will build trust and put you in position to work on the things that matter to the business. This puts you in position to focus your energy and time towards initiatives that will give you higher visibility and exposure.
Get Helpful Feedback
By actively soliciting input based on your recommendations and situation, you can get feedback on how you prioritize and where to spend your time. This will ideally broaden your thinking in how your contributions support the desired outcomes.
Gain Clarity
Clarifying expectations upfront ensures that both parties are on the same page regarding goals, timelines, and deliverables. This lays the groundwork for effective collaboration.
Proactive vs. Reactive
Taking initiative to address challenges and obstacles shows resourcefulness and resilience. Instead of waiting for instructions, individuals can proactively identify solutions and present them to their superiors, demonstrating leadership potential.
Beyond Top-Down Management
While conventional management practices often emphasize a top-down dynamic, managing up can help you get to the top. By recognizing the importance of strategic communication, the big picture, and aligning goals, individuals can benefit themselves considerably.