Managing up meaning: how to work with your boss

Managing up meaning: the relationship you build

To manage up is to work in a way that lets your manager do their job well, and so back yours. That covers how you report, when you raise problems, what you bring to a one-to-one and how you disagree. The narrow version steers your boss toward a decision. The broad version helps them lead the team.

It sounds like a power move. Mostly it’s admin: knowing that your manager reads email at 7 and decides things in the corridor, and acting on it.

Where the idea comes from

John Gabarro and John Kotter wrote an early version in 1980, a business journal article called “Managing Your Boss”. Their case was that a good relationship with your manager is something you build on purpose, for results that suit you, your boss and the company. It was republished in 2005, and the idea outlived its title.

Managing up and managing down

Managing down is the familiar direction, running the work of people who report to you. Managing up runs the other way. You can’t instruct your manager, so you work with information and timing, and make the right choice the easy one.

Examples you can use this week

• Learn the format. Some managers want three bullets, some want a call. Send what gets read.
• Update before you’re asked. A short note on Thursday morning saves three “any news” messages by Thursday night.
• Bring options with a vote. “Two ways to fix it, I’d pick the second” beats “we have a problem”.
• Flag risks early. A risk raised in week one is planning. In week six it’s an apology.
• Ask what they’re judged on. Your manager has a boss too, and their targets shape your week.
• Agree the order. When everything is urgent, ask which thing goes first, then write the answer down.

The information gap

56% of UK employees get annoyed when they don’t have the information they need. 39% get annoyed when nobody credits their work. Managing up covers both. You go and get the information, and you make your work visible before review time.

Managing up in a one-to-one

The weekly one-to-one is where most of it happens, and most people arrive empty-handed. Bring three short lists: what’s done, what’s stuck, and what your manager needs to decide or unblock. Ask one question back, such as what’s taking up their week. The meeting stops being a status report and becomes the one slot where you set the agenda. If it keeps getting cancelled, move it. Don’t drop it.

A lunch and learn invite

Subject: Lunch and learn: Managing up, Thursday 12:30

Bring your lunch and a manager you’d like to understand better. In 45 minutes we’ll cover managing up handling your boss, the weekly update, and how to disagree in writing without starting a thread. Pizza for the first 20.

Flattery, politics and the brown-nose line

The line is whether the work improves. Agreeing with every idea in public, copying your manager on your wins and forwarding the CEO’s posts with “great insight” is managing your image. Colleagues notice the difference quickly, and so do decent managers.

Managing a difficult boss

With a manager who checks every step, managing up means offering a fixed update in exchange for room, which is the practical cure for micromanagement. With one who’s never there, it means booking the time yourself and arriving with decisions ready to sign.

If the relationship has broken down, managing up won’t fix it alone. That’s when your HRBP is worth a conversation. And if check-ins have started coming with notes, find out what a PIP is before your next one.

When managing up becomes the job

Some roles slide into it entirely. The chief of staff, the project manager on a messy programme, the analyst who writes every deck their director presents: their main output is a manager who looks prepared. It’s a real skill and a hard one to put on a CV. Practise describing it in the Self-Review game, where HR’s rules pile up while you write.

In a glossary of corporate jargon about bosses, this is the entry that describes something worth doing.