Managing Your Manager (part one)

Your relationship with your manager is a working partnership between two people, each with strengths, habits, and pressures of their own. This complex dynamic makes “managing up” an essential part of your role. The more clearly you understand how your manager operates, the more effectively you can bring ideas forward, raise concerns, and get what you need to do your best work.

As you strive to manage up more effectively, there are five considerations, which I’ll unpack in the next two articles.

• Understanding yourself as a leader
• Your manager’s career drivers
• Your manager’s communication style
• Your manager’s interaction tendencies
• Gaps in your manager’s approach or knowledge

This first article will cover the first three considerations, and the rest will be covered in part two next week.

Understanding yourself as a leader

Developing a productive dynamic with your manager and becoming adept at managing up starts with understanding yourself as a leader. What are your strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, work styles, and triggers?

Throughout this article, we’re going to examine different aspects of your manager’s habits and tendencies. I invite you to reflect on those same questions regarding your own management style and think about how that impacts your interactions with your manager. This kind of self-awareness can help you understand how to create a productive environment that serves your personal and career goals.

It’s also important to recognize that your ability to manage up depends heavily on the trust and credibility you’ve established with your manager. You can foster this trust by demonstrating consistent follow-through, raising bad news early and not creating surprises, always bringing recommendations along with problems, and meeting expectations. Building this trust could be the focus of another entire article, but for now, we’ll focus mainly on understanding your manager’s tendencies and work style.

Your manager’s career drivers

Some factors driving your manager’s behavior that may have nothing to do with you. Being aware of those cross-currents can tell you a lot about how your manager may react in certain situations and how to approach the task of managing up.

• Motivators: We all have certain situations and dynamics that can be a source of energy… and some that cause us stress. Understanding what these triggers are for your manager can be difficult at first, but they can ultimately tell you a lot about how they may react in a given situation. For example, a manager who draws energy from building new things may act more quickly on ideas framed as new opportunities, while a manager who is risk-averse may need more evidence that a recommended path is viable.
• Goals: Your manager’s goals and accountabilities likely stretch beyond the scope of your work. That means your work and your priorities may conflict with another area of the business—possibly a higher priority—that may grab your manager’s attention. If your work isn’t getting top billing with your manager, there may be a good reason. Always try to tie your requests to one of your manager’s highest priorities. If your needs aren’t among the top priorities, you might receive a tepid response, and you’ll need to decide how hard to push.
• Accountabilities: Remember that everyone reports to someone. Even CEOs are accountable to a board, investors, or customers. Have your antennae up for any pressure your manager might be under. What might your manager's manager be asking of them that might affect their approach? How are they being received by their peers? When you know the bigger picture about what they’re facing, you can better frame what, when, and how you bring new ideas, requests, feedback, etc. A little “upward empathy” goes a long way.

In general, the more you can be in tune with what’s keeping your manager up at night, the more you’re able to stay one step ahead in terms of your communication and your actions.

Your manager’s communication style

Understanding your manager’s communication style can be one of the most important aspects of effectively managing up. It’s OK to directly ask your manager what their preferences are, but you may learn more by observing their behavior than they will tell you.

• Receiving information: Does your manager prefer conversation or written communication? Some people prefer a high-level overview while others may want all the facts and figures. Ask your manager what they prefer. If you're still unsure, err on the side of overview-level info and see if they come back wanting more detail. Generally, bullet points work best for written communication vs. long-form text. Keep in mind their accountabilities, goals, and motivators, and try to stay one step ahead by including information relevant to those aspects.
• Approvals: Communicating a decision point to your manager may look different depending on their approach. Some managers might want to be the one to make the decision, some may want you to ask permission on your recommended path, and some may prefer that you make the call and just keep them updated. Regardless of your manager’s communication style, whenever you encounter a challenge or decision point, always come prepared with a solution or a recommended path, rather than coming to your manager with a problem for them to solve. Outline the situation, the risks, your recommended solution, and alternative options.
• Frequency: Some managers prefer updates only during your check-in meetings. Others may want to be kept up to speed on more frequently. If you’re unsure, try providing updates on a weekly basis and ask whether you should dial that back.

You may find that your manager still struggles with communicating despite their stated preferences. For example, your manager may say they prefer verbal updates as opposed to a written overview, but then they struggle to retain what was discussed. In these instances, you may need to provide info they don’t say they want… but ultimately need.

In the next article, we’ll discuss how to adjust to your manager’s interaction tendencies, how to respond to gaps in their approach or knowledge, and we’ll reflect on how your own tendencies factor into the dynamics when managing up.