3 Tips to Effectively Manage Up
Episode 261 | Author: Emilie AriesBeing in middle management roles can be super exhausting.You not only have to consider the unique communication and work styles of your direct reports who you are tasked with inspiring, motivating, and coaching on a daily basis. But you also have to report up to ensure you’re managing expectations with your own supervisor, and that you're advocating for your team and providing cover for them when necessary.
The reality is - and I know this from personal experience as well as watching Brad the boo rise to a middle management position this year, juggling all of these relationships can be a big challenge and can leave you feeling pulled in too many directions while trying to do your own work well.
Today, I want to share three key tips for effectively managing up whether or not you have direct reports.
Align your Priorities
Align your priorities with your supervisor’s. You've got a lot to do and they have a lot to do at super busy times in particular. You're just not going to know everything that's on your boss's plate and they might not know everything on yours.
If you're managing direct reports, it's not your boss's job to know what exactly each of your team members is doing necessarily. So all that being said, we've got to be sure we're all pulling in the same direction.
One of the ways that we're really trying to do that better here at Bossed Up is through using KPIs, or key performance indicators, to help provide a little bit of transparency around progress that's being made by reporting on the same numbers and measurable performance indicators or metrics of progress of success.
What is my goal that I'm driving towards? What is my deadline and how far am I to achieving that goal? That kind of transparency is not micromanaging.
What we’re essentially trying to do is say, “Hey you figure out how to achieve those goals, I’m here to help you if you want it, but I need to have some sense of how close you are to achieving what you said you're going to achieve.” So using KPIs to communicate transparently is just a way to bring more visibility to how well your work is achieving your shared goals.
Another way I encourage folks to think about this is literally having a conversation with your boss and say, “Hey, I want to make sure that my priorities are in alignment with yours.” That is especially true if you feel if you have too much on your plate.
So if your boss is the kind of person who just constantly delegates and says “Do this, do that, get this done ASAP,” sit down with them and say, “Here’s everything that's on my plate. I want your input on where I start first because I can realistically deliver this by then, but I can’t deliver that by then if I'm delivering this by then.” If you find yourself having to make tough trade-offs and priorities because you just don't have unlimited time, have that conversation transparently with your manager and you'll be seen as being a smart strategic and proactive problem solver when it comes to pre-empting your limitations of bandwidth.
Provide Options
Every single day managers and leaders everywhere have to make tough decisions. Now, your supervisor is not going to be as close to those decisions necessarily as you are. You're the subject matter expert of what you've been looking into.
So let's say I delegate a task to Ellie, our Creative Strategist, who just released our brand new gorgeous newly-designed BossedUp.org and currently we are looking into which external third-party software we want to use to help mail out our LifeTracker Planners. So Ellie is the one who has to deal with that. I want her to be empowered to make that choice, but when she comes to me with those options, I want some very clear comparison.
Make a recommendation. Whenever you are going to your manager in need of a clear decision to be made in order for you to move forward, bring the pluses and benefits or the benefits and drawbacks as well.
Don't forget to provide options to manage up effectively. If you can't even get on their calendar, send them a quick memo, AKA an email, and say:
“Hey boss. I need a decision on this by this date. Here are the three biggest things you need to know about the three different options. Here's my recommendation and why. What do you think?”
That clarity empowers your manager to weigh in, but also shows that you are taking responsibility for making a wise choice yourself and making a wise recommendation. If you have a super busy manager who needs to sign off on these things, provide options and provide some detail and if you’re ever like, “I’m feeling really torn, I can’t make a clear recommendation on this. I'd love to talk it out with you first,” say that as well.
No one is asking for complete certainty. In fact, I as a manager would much rather have my team members come to me and say we have two choices to choose between here. I have to admit. I'm not feeling really good about either of them. That is good information for us to troubleshoot through together.
So if you have some doubt don't be afraid to express it in the context of providing options for the path forward because you can always say, “For example, we can go with option A, option B, or if you'd like I can look more into this. But before I spend four hours researching something that might not be that big of a decision, I wanted to get your gut check first.” Keep all of those key concepts in mind when managing up.
Anticipate Needs
This is something my team does incredibly well and I think a big part of it is visibility around schedule.
For example, I will have a schedule that looks absurd. It's over scheduled. I’ve got coaching calls. I’ve got cohorts of HIRED members who I'm coaching through the job search process. I've got corporate clients and speaking clients who I’m presenting virtual workshops to and I've got my Level Up cohorts of women leaders on the rise, so I'm not only coaching but also training.
And all of a sudden, I will look at my calendar a week ahead and I don't even have time for lunch break. Then my fabulous podcast editor, Stacey, will be like, “I need your time to record some podcasts as well.” So at times in the past when this has happened - which happens far too often, my team will look at my schedule and be like, “Emilie. You need to make some tough choices here. Like what can we move? What can we cancel? What can we postpone? Who’s flexible on moving meetings because we need to make sure you're eating lunch.”
So if you can anticipate not only the basic human needs of your supervisor, but also how to be a snow plow parent for your supervisor, what that enables them to do is when they look at their calendar and realize, Oh my god, I’ve been so busy thinking about delivering on this. I have to somehow get up and deliver on that in 2 hours. You'll already be ready with the materials they need to review with preparation docs that they need to have access to, with the PowerPoint that they need. That kind of anticipation of what's coming down the pipeline is something that all of us as professionals should do well. It's a move that certainly managers should have a better handle on, but they are humans too so they might not.
If you have the bandwidth to look ahead and say, Okay, this is what my managers are going to need from me by the end of next week and they haven't asked for it yet. Get on it anyway. Showing that kind of proactive approach gets you noticed in all the best ways and at the end of the day, if you want to make yourself look good, make their job easier. That's all it takes.
You will become invaluable. Your manager will fight tooth and nail for you and your job if you make operating without you much, much, much more difficult.
I hope these tips for managing up give you a sense of how important it is to think about your relationship, not only with the folks that you manage, but with the folks who managed you because it's not really about some clear hierarchy. It's about communication and transparency in a way that makes everything work.
I don't like the idea of above or below thinking, it's more about mutual respect all around your relationships. It’s always about caring, empathy, emotional intelligence, and mutual respect.
If you want to learn more about leadership and management best practices to level up in your career, enrollment is currently open for Level Up, our six-month leadership accelerator program.
