Managing Up: Your Boss Needs Leading Too

Managing up has a branding problem. Say it out loud and it can sound suspiciously like corporate code for keeping the boss happy.

• Agree at the right moments.
• Make their life easier.
• Don't become inconvenient.
• Work out how they like things done and adjust accordingly.

That's not managing up. That's compliance with better networking.

Properly understood, managing up is considerably more demanding. It means understanding the intent, pressures and priorities above us well enough to support them, while retaining enough judgement to challenge something when it doesn't make sense.

Sometimes the most useful thing a person can give their boss isn't agreement. It's information the boss doesn't particularly want to hear. That's when managing up becomes leadership.

Leadership Doesn't Only Travel Downhill

We tend to think about leadership vertically.

• Leaders provide direction.
• Teams execute.
• Information flows down.
• Accountability flows back up.

Real organisations are considerably messier.

Good decisions depend on information moving in both directions. Senior leaders often operate with broader context but less operational detail. The people closer to the work usually have more detail but less visibility of the bigger picture. Neither has the complete picture. Managing up helps close that gap.

It means providing the information, context and challenge that allows the person above to make better decisions. Not because their position is irrelevant but because their position makes the quality of those decisions particularly important.

Understand the Pressure Above You

It is easy to judge a decision when we can only see the consequences from our own position.

• A manager changes a deadline.
• A senior leader rejects a proposal.
• Resources move somewhere else.
• A decision appears irrational.

Sometimes it is. But sometimes we're looking at one piece of a much larger problem. Managing up requires enough curiosity to understand what the person above is actually trying to achieve.

• What pressures are they carrying?
• What information do they have that we don't?
• What competing priorities are they balancing?
• What risk are they trying to manage?

This doesn't mean automatically agreeing with them. It means making sure we're disagreeing with the actual problem rather than the version of it visible from our position.

Context doesn't always make a decision right. It usually makes our judgement of it better informed.

Don't Take Problems Upstairs Naked

Leaders need to know when something isn't working. They don't necessarily need every problem deposited on their desk without any thinking attached.

There is a difference between escalation and abdication. “This isn't working. What should I do?” is very different from: “This isn't working. Here's what we've tried, here's what we think is causing it, and here are the options we can see. This one is outside my authority, so I need a decision.”

Both involve taking a problem upwards. Only one demonstrates judgement.

Good managing up means understanding when something genuinely requires senior involvement and when we're simply seeking permission because making the decision ourselves feels uncomfortable.

Escalate what needs authority. Own what doesn't.

Give Them What They Need, Not Everything You Know

More information isn't necessarily better communication. Senior leaders can be surrounded by information and still have remarkably little clarity.

Managing up requires judgement about what matters.

• What has changed?
• What decision is required?
• What risk is emerging?
• What does the leader need to understand that they currently don't?
• What can safely remain at the operational level?

Sending twelve pages when three sentences would have enabled the decision isn't thoroughness if nobody reads them. Equally, reducing a complicated problem until all the inconvenient detail disappears isn't clarity.

The skill is knowing the difference. Good communication upwards reduces noise without removing meaning.

Challenge Without Becoming Obstructive

This is where managing up becomes uncomfortable.

There will be times when a leader is wrong. Or at least when we believe they are. The easy options sit at either extreme. Say nothing and comply. Or challenge everything loudly enough that everyone knows how independent-minded we are. Neither requires much sophistication but useful challenge sits somewhere in between.

It requires understanding the intent, presenting relevant information, explaining the consequences we can see and offering alternatives where possible. Sometimes that challenge will change the decision. Sometimes it won't. And that's important.

Being heard doesn't mean getting our way. Once a legitimate decision has been made, there comes a point where continuing to relitigate it stops being constructive challenge and starts becoming obstruction.

Good leaders need people willing to disagree with them. They also need people capable of moving forward after the disagreement.

Support Isn't Sycophancy

There is an equally dangerous problem at the other end.

Some people become very good at telling senior leaders what senior leaders would like to hear. Bad news gets softened. Risks get minimised. Opinions mysteriously align with whoever has the most authority in the room.

This can make relationships with senior leaders considerably easier. It can also make those leaders considerably worse informed.

If the purpose of managing up is simply to remain popular with the boss, it isn't leadership. Loyalty doesn't require agreement. In fact, there are times when loyalty to the leader, team or organisation requires saying something uncomfortable.

A leader surrounded by agreement may feel well supported while being dangerously under-informed.

Adapt Without Becoming Someone Else

Different leaders work differently.

• Some want detail.
• Some want the headline.
• Some prefer problems raised immediately.
• Others want people to investigate first and arrive with options.
• Some think aloud. Some need time before responding.

Understanding these differences isn't inauthentic. It's communication.

We already change how we communicate depending on context. A board presentation, team conversation and client meeting aren't delivered identically. The same applies upwards.

The danger comes when adaptation becomes performance. Managing up shouldn't require abandoning judgement, values or personality to become whatever version of us receives the most approval.

Adapt the communication. Don't outsource the thinking.

Timing Matters

The perfect argument delivered at the wrong moment can still fail.

There are conversations worth having that don't need to happen in front of twenty people. There are issues that require immediate escalation and others that benefit from waiting until better information is available. There are moments to challenge publicly because the consequences demand it. There are others where doing so simply corners the leader and makes productive discussion less likely.

Managing up therefore requires more than courage. It requires judgement.

• What needs to be said?
• Who needs to hear it?
• When?
• And in what environment is the conversation most likely to produce something useful?

Being right is helpful. Being right in a way that achieves absolutely nothing is less impressive.

Your Boss Might Be the Problem

There is an uncomfortable limitation to all of this. Managing up isn't magic. Sometimes the problem genuinely is the person above.

• A leader who punishes bad news will eventually stop receiving it.
• A leader who interprets disagreement as disloyalty will eventually surround themselves with agreement.
• A leader who micromanages every decision will train people to stop exercising judgement.
• And no amount of carefully calibrated communication from below can completely compensate for consistently poor leadership above.

Managing up can improve a difficult relationship. It cannot make every relationship functional.

That distinction matters because otherwise we risk turning managing up into another way of making employees responsible for compensating for leadership failures they didn't create and cannot control.

Good Leaders Make Managing Up Easier

There is another side to this conversation. If leaders want people to manage up effectively, they need to make it reasonably safe to do so.

• How does the leader respond when someone disagrees?
• What happens to the person who brings bad news?
• Are questions interpreted as curiosity or challenge?
• Does the leader genuinely want another perspective, or only until that perspective becomes inconvenient?

Senior leaders shape the quality of information they receive through the way they respond to it. Punish candour often enough and people learn remarkably quickly. Eventually everything starts looking fine. Right up until it isn't.

Managing Up Is Still Leadership

Managing up isn't about manipulating authority. It isn't about flattering the boss. And it isn't a clever strategy for career advancement. It is the ability to understand the environment above us, communicate what matters, exercise judgement, challenge constructively and support decisions once they have been made.

Sometimes that means making the boss's job easier. Sometimes it means making their thinking harder. Both can be useful.

Leadership isn't defined purely by who reports to us. It is demonstrated in how we influence the people around us, including those with more authority than we have.

The best person in the room isn't always the one who agrees with the boss. Sometimes it's the one prepared to help the boss see what they're missing.