What exactly is managing up?
Managing up is taking initiative, speaking up, communicating, asking questions, driving things (ideas, processes, change), taking the lead (trying not to step on toes), and teaching/coaching others. It’s often looked at as subordinates “managing up” to superiors, but managing up can be used peer-to-peer as well. Managing up is exhibiting highly-effective behaviors that others are not exhibiting. By exhibiting the highly-effective behaviors, others witness these, notice them, and then try to emulate them (the ripple effect).
Managing up is a crucial skill to have, especially when so many leaders haven’t received leadership training. One caveat is that managing up isn’t always worth your effort and this requires a judgment call on your part. For example, managing up with a narcissist leader is not worth your time and effort. In order to make the judgment call, you have to fully assess the situation.
Personal story: the very last full-time job I held in financial services was a very toxic work environment, yet I was still trying to manage up. My direct boss was ineffective and dysfunctional, but, with the right training and development, he certainly had potential (according to my overall assessment). I had already been doing Executive Coaching on the side and really knew my stuff when it comes to highly-effective behaviors so I put my knowledge into action as an experiment to try to make some positive improvements with them. For context, I was truly at the bottom of the hierarchy there – and to top it off, I was a young-looking female in a very typical old-white-male organization (and industry). This meant I often chose to filter things through my male coworkers – who were listened to more than I was. Unfortunate, but, reality.
In an effort to increase gratitude & appreciation (essentially there was none in the company), I sent my boss a heartfelt email expressing my gratitude for him voluntarily stepping into that role and shared the impact he had on me and the direction of the team. HE NEVER RESPONDED!!!! Talk about an attempt that flat-out failed. It really amuses me to look back on this. His behavior was unfortunately being shaped more and more by the severely dysfunctional leaders above him and gratitude/appreciation was simply not a part of the organizational culture.
This was not my only attempt at improving things with them. I was using them as an experiment; I kept throwing things out there to see if anything would stick – it didn’t (lesson learned on having a true narcissist at the top) and now over half of the staff has turned over.
What kinds of things can you do to manage up?
👉🏻 Exhibit any and all highly-effective behavior.
👉🏻 Be a clearer, more transparent communicator than others.
👉🏻 Ask direct, specific questions. “What can I do to support you better?” “What are your goals & how can I help you reach them?”
👉🏻 Push for clarity on everything – meeting agendas, meeting minutes, SOPs, goals, expectations. Take initiative and start doing this and encourage others to do this as well.
👉🏻 Take initiative on things such as stay interviews. If you’re a leader, start doing them on your team.
👉🏻 Provide & solicit feedback – across, up & down. *Be careful with providing feedback – don’t just look for every opportunity to do it. Do it genuinely and focus on behaviors, not the person – i.e. it’s not appropriate to give feedback telling them you believe they have “bad judgment.” That makes it about the person.
👉🏻 Understand the workplace culture & politics – all of the unspoken rules, who holds power, etc.
👉🏻 Share your work style & communication preferences and request these from others.
👉🏻 Be an expert self promoter and team promoter.
👉🏻 Learn how to act as a coach to others so that you can partner with them in development.
When do you cut your losses? (managing up isn’t worth it)
This is your judgment call. Clients use me to help them with this judgment call. Sometimes, the organization as a whole, or the one incompetent/toxic boss is just not worth your time and effort. Depending on how bad it is, changing behaviors can be a verrrryyy slow process. You can try to map out your experimentation plan for managing up and seeing what sticks (have progress check-ins) and give yourself a deadline – for example, I’m going to try these 5 things and if I don’t see a certain amount of progress by the end of Q1-2023, I will start looking for another job. I will check in with progress every 2-3 weeks to track.
Will you try to manage up this month? Tell me what works and what doesn’t work for you!
