The Art of Managing Up

Managing up is the practice of building your relationship with your boss and consistently elevating the output you achieve together. It includes learning their preferences and desired outcomes, asking thoughtful questions to understand nuances, keeping them informed of progress, and elevating results.

Build trust they can count on you to deliver

• Manage expectations. Understand what outcome they’re looking for, when they expect to see results, and any requirements they have. Let them know when to expect what.
• Proactively update them on progress. Set up cadences to provide consistent visibility into status and review important milestones. Minimize the need to require their involvement while giving them an opportunity to shape the work that you do.
• Renegotiate when necessary. If plans change, communicate early to provide opportunities to adjust commitments. If you run into an issue they should be aware of, show up with a proposed solution that has been well-vetted by SME’s.  

Set the bar for high performance

• Communicate their way. Understand their preferences for communication methods and styles. Senior executives are busy; summaries that they can easily scan, with additional detail attached typically work best.
• Put yourself in their shoes. Understand their desired outcomes. Think through how they would approach it and what questions they would ask.
• Add a golden touch to everything you work on.  Always elevate the quality and value of the output. Make each item that you deliver simple for all who consume it.

Always increase value

• Actively seek feedback. Welcome their input and listen intently when they give it to you. Capture the critical points and follow up to ensure you solve for them.
• Use their time wisely. Minimize the need for urgent distractions. Use 1:1’s for strategic alignment.
• Take great care of everything assigned to you. Make it easier to work through you than to do it themselves. Identify how you can help them more and continue to pull work from them as much as possible.  

Those who have mastered the ability to manage up add incredible value to the work that their team delivers. When you focus on how you can provide the best service as well as increase value provided, you take a different level of ownership over the work that you do.