On managing up

The golden rule of managing up is to think from your manager’s perspective

People often think that a manager manages those they lead. But that is only half the job. An important part of a manager’s role is also to manage up to the people who lead them.

Managing up is proactively working to understand, support, and guide your manager and higher-ups so that you can all succeed. This can be one of the skills that differentiates two people with the same level of potential, skills, and knowledge from one another. The person who manages up will likely be more successful than the other person who doesn’t.

It is not about controlling your manager or simply doing what they want. It is about building a relationship in which you understand what they need, help them see what you see, and make it easier for them to succeed.

Managers and stakeholders operate in a different context from the people they lead. Your manager may have a broader view of the organization, different priorities, and constraints that you cannot see. At the same time, you have a much closer view of your team, your projects, and the problems your engineers are facing. Neither perspective is complete on its own without a mechanism for reconciliation.

Many people don’t manage up because they have a negative perception of managing up. Some manage up in one area and leave out other areas, especially when it comes to creating awareness about what they personally did and why.​

Some might even see it as bootlicking, or don’t want to come off as bragging or self-promoting, which can be seen negatively in some cultures and contexts.

The truth is, your manager will have an impact on you; it just depends on how it develops. Your only influence on how it turns out is through managing up.​

Managing up will help bridge the gap between your intent and others’ perception of it.

People often have great plans and good intentions. The problem is often that our intentions might not always be known, and our ways of seeing things and our actions might not always match others’ perceptions of us. Your manager may see a problem but might not know why you’re choosing not to solve it yet. They might not even know if you’re aware of it or doing anything about it. You may have put off a much bigger fire, but your manager doesn’t see that. The best way to get the support you need and to have space to do the work that serves you and the organization is by managing up.

The simplest way I have seen someone describe managing up is to think of your actions as a brand. A brand is what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. The problem with creating a brand is that other people’s perceptions of these 3 things matter more than your own perception.

I once took over a team. One of the things I noticed was the ping-pong between the product, design, and engineering teams. A feature spec goes from the product owner to the designer and then to the engineers. Engineers get brought in late for feedback. Engineers would then provide feedback that a specific flow is not feasible at the moment, and another round of rework ensues. I introduced a change ensuring that engineers be part of ideation when a feature is being discussed and provide early perspective.

As the initiator of that change, the what, why, and how to fix the problem were clear to me. But not so to others. It felt like people had to spend more time in meetings instead of writing code they enjoy. It really does not matter what the intention behind that is; so far, the perception of people affected by that change isn’t the same as mine.

The first rule of managing up: think from your manager’s perspective

The easiest way to start managing up is to think of what from your manager’s perspective.

Ask yourself: What behaviors would a report display that would make you have confidence in them and love working with them?

Every manager wants:

• Someone good at their job

• Someone who they can trust and rely on

• Someone whose judgment they trust

• Someone who gives them less trouble

• Someone who will help them succeed and achieve their goals

• Someone they can connect and relate with.

• And so on.

The list is endless—the easiest way to think about this. Look at yourself. What direct report would you love to work with and why? What would they do that would make you love working with them? When we think through this lens, you can start to see what you can do to manage up.

Be good at your job and at what your manager expects you to do.

The first thing about managing up is understanding what your manager expects of you. Ask questions to ensure your priorities align with what they want you to work on and to be good at those things.​

Make yourself reliable

Every manager loves a report they can assign something to and never have to worry about it. Ways to make yourself reliable include doing those things and making it a habit to follow up with status or progress updates. Don’t wait for them to ask about it. Proactively communicate where things are, what you’re doing next, and the next step you’re going to take.

If you have to overcommunicate to not create a surprise, do

If you find or see a problem developing, you have some choices: run the other way, keep quiet about it and hope it goes away, or report it with a plan to mitigate it. The former have consequences. The problem could grow bigger over time and surprise people who are most impacted by this. At this time, you have lost some trust, which is harder to earn back. It’s one of the reasons many managers have 1:1s or office hours. Some might even prepare a template based on what they need to understand and ask people to pre-fill ahead of the meeting. They’re trying to draw information and understand what is happening beneath them.

One of the things I still struggle with is deciding whether sending an update to folks higher up provides value, whether they read it, and whether it adds more work to what they already have to do. One can get so worked up about this decision that one never sends that update or keeps stakeholders in the loop. An act of managing up never surprises your stakeholders. If things are going well, let them know. If it’s not going well, let them know. The element of surprise, even when you have it covered, can make stakeholders take a move that might jeopardize what you have been trying to put together.

Even if you can fix the problem, it’s still a problem, and your managers deserve to know about it. By not surprising your boss, their confidence grows in you.

Come forward with ideas, anticipate problems, and propose solutions.

Another downside of managing is having to share all the good and bad stuff without coming up with a solution. Just as people never report when things go wrong, some people also over-index on problems and are very comfortable sharing what is going wrong. Don’t stop at sharing problems; also include your plan to resolve it and the help you need from others to solve it.​

Help keep your manager and stakeholders accountable.

More often than not, every meeting you have with a stakeholder or someone higher up will leave you with an item you either need to do or follow up on. Sometimes it’s something you need to do or follow up on; other times, it’s something they need to do or follow up on.

There are a few ways this can play out:

1. Everyone forgets about it. Nothing happens.

2. You do your part and move on. The work gets done, but you never close the loop with the person who asked for it.

3. You close the loop. When you meet again, you recap what you discussed, what was agreed upon, what each person owned, and what has happened since.

Which of these makes you look the most accountable?

The answer is obvious: the third one.

What I recommend is that at the beginning of your next meeting, take a few minutes to recap the previous conversation:

• What you discussed

• What you’all agreed on

• What did the stakeholder say they would do

• What you own and the progress you made

• What is still outstanding

This does two things.

First, you establish yourself as someone who is accountable and follows through on commitment.

Second, you create accountability for the other person. By explicitly recording what they committed to do and bringing it up in your next conversation, you make it much harder for the action item to disappear.