So called managing up conjures up eye rolls in many people. You know it needs doing but it is a heavy lift getting and keeping your relationship with your boss and others on solid ground. Eye roll and all, it's worth the lift.
Managing up can feel like as amorphous a concept as it sounds. I did more than a small amount of eye-rolling in my life thinking about the need to manage up. After all, I come from a long line of “my work will speak for itself” type folks.
Over time I had to two aha moments:
1. I realized the people I was helping most by building a good relationship with my boss was myself and later my teams.
2. For the people working directly for me, I was the one they were trying to figure out. It sensitized and grounded me to why understanding and helping my manager was so essential for us both. It shaped how I built relationships with folks on my team.
If managing up enabled this, I needed to sign up, albeit thoughtfully.
23 At Bats
Recently I did the recall about all the managers I reported to – 23 of them spanning 5 employers over 32 years. The last company was 20 of those years and most of the managers. (Now I have a new boss. She’s complicated, so TBD on her so far.)
I remember every one of them – some more clearly than others. Most notable of course is the extremes – excellent through to underwhelming and even dreadful. Nevertheless, each of them conjured up thoughts about some part of my career.
Your boss makes an impact on you – it’s merely a question of how the effect renders.
The output from my mental run through resembled a bell curve regarding my assessment of their leadership. While only a few of the 23 were terrible, equally as few I consider excellent.
The other thing it prompted was the remembrance of what went into all of those transitions. That’s a whole lot of starting over with people who play such a critical role in your progression, compensation and most important well being at work.
What Do We Mean By Managing Up
The Harvard Business Review article by Dana Rousmaniere on What Everyone Should Know About Managing Up lays it out this way:
Perhaps the most important skill to master is figuring out how to be a genuine source of help — because managing up doesn’t mean sucking up. It means being the most effective employee you can be, creating value for your boss and your company.
Creating value is a smart way to frame it. When all else fails, let adding value be your north star for managing up.
Why It’s Annoying
Three and two on reasons why managing up is both annoying and important.
1. Starting over means new personalities, routines, opinions, and priorities. You need to build a relationship and a working reputation. Even if you know the person, you need to forge that direct connection unless you’ve worked for them.
It can be an exciting or it can be a grind. If they are new to the role, it can be work. When I took on new positions, I would ask for patience and thank them in advance. New managers are work. You take more than you give (meaning value) for quite a while.
2. Some are better than others. In rare cases do you pick your boss. You get what you get. Some are excellent leaders, normal to interface with, are in your corner, and some are not. It’s disappointing when you realize they are right of center on the bell curve. Nonetheless, you have a job to do.
Part of them being “better” is their ability to get things done on your behalf, your team’s behalf. Some have juice in the organization; some don’t. When they don’t, it’s a painful trickle down.
3. You Make The Investment Not Knowing How Long. As evidenced by my stats (which I don’t think are unique), managing up requires you to invest in relationships that don’t last long. The early part of this relationship building, finding the working norms take time. Several times I felt like “ok, I’ve got this figured out,” only to have a change ensue (for them or me).
And Why It’s Important
4. Your Life Is Better – as vital as your manager is in influencing your future, the most critical role they play is how they impact your daily existence.
If you don’t have a solid every day, a future with them and even your organization are less attractive. Managing up begins and ends with being able to construct and nurture a positive every day working environment. The goal – a place you want to be and work you want to be doing. This translates to a situation where you can add considerable value.
5. Doing It Well Says About You – Having a reputation as someone who can build and make relationships work serves you well. Yes, there are horrible managers everyone knows who you get the “oh I’m sorry” head nod internally when you explain it’s not going well. Even with them, making the relationship productive serves you in the end. With some, stable and productive is an accomplishment.
You show flexibility, adaptability and in some cases resilience. If your experience is anything like the bell curve of mine, you only get a few at the extremes. And something generally happens with them. People know who the great and awful leaders are.
One thing under the banner of What People See When They Watch You – And They Are includes how you work with your manager. Apparent tension or distance are unnerving for your team.
Finally, if you continue to progress and diversify your career, you are going to work for a lot of different people. It’s a skill set you take with you. Every lesson contributes.
Learnings 1-4
Here are a few reflections about managing up. No lecture here rather my hard and in some cases long in coming learnings on how to successfully manage up.
- Be really good. The most appealing, exciting and unique thing you can do to manage up — be really, really good. It cures most things. And when it can’t, go find somewhere else to be fantastic!
- Don’t over or under react. There is plenty of middle ground between a “suck up” and passive-aggressive acting as if they don’t exist. Find a lane you can run in and build that productive relationship.
- Communicate with purpose. Don’t surprise them. And communicate things you would want to know walking in their shoes.
- Be proactive. As a manager, having someone anticipate and come forward with an idea, approach, a fix was the absolute best. This is a value add.
Learnings 5-8
- Do the work of building a relationship. My natural lean is to wait for it to come to me. I learned to find and even create ways to make connections more quickly. In the end, it was better and more comfortable for both of us.
- Style differences don’t matter that much. I have worked for all types stylistically. Some I was most different from I had significant relationships. Understanding style matters but don’t change yours. It neither works or matters in the end.
- Be aware of who installed them. Understand the lay of the land around your manager. Who installed them, supports them and who does not. You don’t need to play a game, but you should understand how the chess board sets up.
- Don’t over-index. You will have many managers. I’ve seen people attach themselves to one individual in unhealthy ways for their growth, reputation and ultimately their career. Finding sponsors and supporters is smart. Being dependent on the rise of a single leader isn’t. Your body of work will stand on its own.
Some people live for the managing up piece. For the rest of us, it’s about adding value and paying attention to the connections without losing yourself along the way.
Being really, really good is your starting point. It paves a long career highway with plenty of options. No organization said ever, “we have too many of those people!”
Question: What is your best learning or advice about managing up?