Managing Up: One Invisible Skill Behind Leadership Effectiveness

Your success depends not just on leading your team, but also on how well you work with your manager. Yet many professionals treat their relationship with their manager as something that simply “happens” to them. The most effective leaders take a different approach. They actively manage the relationship upward.

Managing up is not about office politics or manipulation. It’s a way to help your manager and your organization succeed.

Strategies to Master Managing Up

1. Start Here: Understand What Success Looks Like for Your Manager

A simple way to improve how you work with your manager is to learn what matters most to their success.

Your manager faces their own pressures, such as board expectations, executive goals, financial targets, and political realities you may not see. When you focus your work on what matters most to them, you become much more valuable.

Coach’s Tip

Leaders who manage up effectively explain their work in ways that matter to their manager. Things change fast in organizations, so schedule a recurring task on your calendar to ask your manager these questions quarterly:

• What are the top three priorities you’re being measured on this quarter?

• Where would you most appreciate support right now?

• What does success look like for you in this role?

2. What If Your Manager Has (a lot of) Big Ideas?

Many senior leaders come up with lots of ideas. They spot opportunities everywhere and move quickly from one idea to another. This creativity can be exciting, but it can also make things confusing for teams who need to get things done.

If your manager is like this, your job isn’t to shut down their ideas, but to help turn them into real results.

Coach’s Tip

It’s important to respect your leader’s ideas while helping everyone focus on what matters most. To help them connect big ideas to real action, ask them:

• That’s an exciting direction. Should we treat this as an exploratory idea or a priority initiative?

• If we continue with this, which of our active priorities should pause?

• What would success look like if we implemented this?

3. What If Your Manager Moves (very) Fast?

Some leaders move very fast. They send lots of emails, make quick decisions, and expect everyone to keep up. If you work for someone like this, it can be hard to know what’s most important. Your job is to figure out and highlight the real priorities.

Coach’s Tip

If your manager moves quickly, summarize and confirm direction by asking your manager these questions:

• Just to make sure I’m aligned, the two priorities you want us focused on this week are X and Y, correct?

• Would you prefer speed on this, or a more thorough recommendation?

These questions do critical two things: they show you take initiative and help your team avoid wasting time on the wrong work.

4. What if We Just Don’t Click?

Not every manager and employee will click right away. Differences in how you communicate, work, or interact can cause tension. When this happens, it helps to focus less on personal chemistry and more on getting the work done well together.

Coach’s Tip

It is important to adapt your style to your manager's (this isn’t being fake; it’s a sign of leadership maturity). To do this, learn their Insight style and ask them:

• How does this person prefer information delivered?

• Do they like brief summaries or detailed analysis?

• Do they prefer to discuss ideas live or review them in writing?

One executive I coached improved his relationship with a tough manager just by changing how he gave updates. He switched from long explanations to short, three-bullet summaries. The tension quickly disappeared.

5. Make Your Manager Look Good

There’s a saying in leadership: great employees help their manager succeed. This isn’t about flattery or office politics. It’s about understanding what your manager needs, offering solutions, and helping protect their reputation.

When your manager goes into a meeting well-prepared because you provided clear ideas and analysis, you both succeed.

The Bottom Line

Managing up is a leadership skill that doesn’t get talked about enough. Employees who do it on purpose often feel more satisfied at work, get better performance reviews, and move up faster in their careers. The best leaders know that leadership isn’t just about leading those below you. Sometimes, the smartest thing you can do is learn how to lead upward.

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