Something I learned early on as a leader was the idea of managing up. I remember my Harvard MBA spouse describing the idea to me after a particularly unproductive series of meetings with my boss at the time. It seemed I could never get my needs met, that she never seemed to notice anything that I did that I felt good about, and that she had a lot of needs of her own that I was unsure about. Fast forward through almost 30 years of leadership, working for one boss sometimes and working for entire boards of directors at others, to today and the work SmarterWisdom does with leaders facing the same issues. How do we collaborate best with our immediate supervisors? The advice my MBA spouse gave to me was to manage up, which meant to considering more where the “boss” or “the board” was coming from and work it. Is this effort really necessary? Does it pay off? How does it integrate into the whole picture of leadership success?

SmarterWisdom’s answers to the first two questions are a resounding yes. And seeing it as part of the picture of successful leadership, at all levels, is a smart thing to do. Try to see managing up as just one part of your work as a leader or an emerging leader, in any role you play. Consider managing up as a component of the awareness of what it means to be part of a team—manage up, yes, but also all around you in similar ways. Thinking explicitly about the context of your work and the integrated role you can play in furthering your own growth, and the growth of your organization, will place you within a position of power and strength that can serve you, and your boss and your colleagues, well.

SmarterWisdom believes that managing up is very worthwhile and urges you to consider focusing in the following areas in order to exploit it all you can:

1.     Know what kind of manager/ boss you have: are they new in the role? Are they a volunteer board chair? A corporate CEO? Are they all-knowing and super confident? Hands off? It’s actually OK to take the time to find out the answers to these questions with your person. A coffee off-site (now we are meeting in person), or a call where you ask them ahead of time if you can talk through how you hope to work together. Find out what makes them tick, what pushes their buttons and what they really like in a productive partnership.

2.     Manage the relationship in an ongoing fashion: if you typically meet weekly and these meetings are fairly business-like and transactional, try to schedule coffee or a dinner for a broader check in from time-to-time. These are the times when you can elicit feedback, perhaps offer your boss some feedback, if they are open to it. Be more open and vulnerable yourself and work to build the trust that will be necessary in this relationship.

3.     Work out where and when you can use your influence: Based on the ongoing relationship you build, and your knowledge about how this person operates, you will start to be able to take more risks with what you say and when you might step out of your comfort zone. If you spend time developing the partnership, you will develop the necessary instincts about when and where to ask a hard question, or even make a bold suggestion.

4.     Keep doing it: All relationships require work and work relationships can be complex. You cannot assume much at all in this manager-boss relationship; it may change all the time, especially at the beginning. Remain unbiased and stay on task with some clear goals for yourself. One thing you can assume is that your boss is growing in the role along with you—stay tuned to that idea and allow them to show you that growth if they are willing.

5.     Pay attention to your peers and team members as you do this work: Are you modeling for them in a helpful way? Would you like them to approach you in the ways you are relating to your boss? Can you in fact coach and mentor them to do this work?

Listen to Blood, Sweat and Tears sing their great song: Spinnin’ Wheel, “What goes up…must come down…”;  it’s the same with all good partnerships and collaborative relationships. As you learn to manage your boss, you frequently learn more about yourself, what your needs are in a working relationship and what you can ask for. SmarterWisdom has learned over time that it is not just managing up that works, but managing all around you and encouraging colleagues to do the same. The more you know about how people on your team like to work, the more you will accomplish—not just in organizational goals but equally in building the strong team, the team where members know each other, trust each other, challenge and stretch each other to grow and achieve. Doing this means that you are paying attention to true leadership, a level of leadership where conscious and explicit attention to growth of people is evident. Managing up may appear to be a one-way street, turns out it is a very busy two-way highway!

[Resources: https://hbr.org/2015/01/what-everyone-should-know-about-managing-up

https://www.idealist.org/en/careers/managing-up]

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