Employees who manage up to bosses help the entire organization and their careers

You probably have a boss, who has a boss, who has a bigger boss, who has a boss in the C-suite. And, the thought of actually managing all or even one of those bosses, as an individual employee, might feel rather daunting.

But every employee can “manage up” to their boss and leadership teams in order to take the reins of their career and gain influence within the company, says Melody Wilding, author of Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge.

Wilding shared more with HR Brew from her book.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What does “managing up” mean?

I very simply define managing up as how do you navigate your relationship with the people that have more positional power or positional authority than you. Primarily, that’s going to be your boss, but not always…and I think the mistake people make is that they think managing up is just something they do for their manager’s benefit, to get on their good side, to make them happy, to make them look good. It tends to be very much about the other person.

When, in actuality, managing up…is really about creating the conditions you need to be successful, whether that’s negotiating your workload, giving feedback and actually having it be heard, advocating for the resources you need or the advancement you want. It’s actually something you should do for your own benefit.

How can employees manage up when they may have conflicting interests or goals from their managers?

It’s ironic that mostly managing up starts with yourself. Managing yourself, your own psychology, understanding your own frame of reference, because, yes, you may value flexibility and making sure you have enough energy for your work and you’re engaged, and you or your team have high morale, and that’s why work-life balance is important to you.

But, you may be dealing with a manager who is much more efficient [and] results-oriented. The people side of it is not as top of mind or convincing for them, and that’s really crucial to know because that influences how you frame your message, so that it actually gets through to them.

And, if you can say something along the lines of, “After 6pm, I do log off to spend time with my family, because I want to make sure that when I show up here, I can deliver the best results. I don’t make mistakes, which means that we can get deliverables to our clients faster,” you’re contextualizing it in a way that your manager is actually going to hear, care more about, and that will convince them to take action or say yes. You’re not fundamentally changing the content of your message. You’re just tweaking it, so that ultimately it’s more effective for you.

What role does HR play in helping employees manage up?

Everything from communicating and helping facilitate some of these conversations around alignment…It’s something that we all kind of overlook, because we’re just busy getting the work done. We very rarely zoom out or up to think about, Why are we doing this, and are we actually on the same page?

Especially now, as things are changing so quickly. Every day, every hour, it sounds like priorities are changing. You need to make sure your manager and the people who are reporting to them are aligned and understand, “What does success look like?” And, I think HR plays an important role in normalizing that those conversations should even be happening and helping people understand what’s the utility of them to you, as the manager.

This should be something that’s coming up in your one-on-ones, where managers, you are giving your employees line of sight into things you’re thinking about, or what’s happening at the leadership level. So, they can anticipate, they can ask questions. They have an opportunity to step up and say, “Actually, I would love to be part of that meeting. That’s something I could handle on your behalf.” So, they have development opportunities.