Managing Up I
This is a story about managing up, accepting your manager’s weaknesses and working on your own.
This is a story about managing up. I recently had a call with a manager I occasionally coach, talking about their manager and how unhappy they were with the quality of their annual feedback.
Now, one of my theories around what type of leader you are is about what direction you give your attention to: you can focus your energy down towards your reports; in towards the work; out towards stakeholders; and up to management and leadership. You will be a combination of these, depending on your interest and strengths (and this will change over time too). Some roles will favour some mix over others. Sort out any critical weaknesses and you can find success with any mix.
I have worked with both this person and their manager, so I had a bit of extra insight. This person’s focus is primarily down, and in. They are weak with out and hadn’t put much consideration into managing up. Meanwhile their manager’s focus is primarily up and out, preferring to delegate the work, and giving relatively infrequent attention to their reports.
This “mirror” combination became very evident for my coachee during performance review. They believed they’d spent the year doing stellar work, taking initiate on projects and managing a strong team. Their manager didn’t take the same view on their successes or what was important—and rated them “average”. My coachee was really upset with this rating. But I could see how their own ethic led to their disappointment: they are a great team leader who cares deeply for their teamies, and assumed they would receive the same in return. They felt trapped under this manager and didn’t see how they could simultaneously show the breadth of work they did, deliver on their own career ambitions, and please this manager.
My message is this. As you move up into leadership, you find your manager will put less effort into your growth and development, performance and direction. They kind of expect you to get on with it. And I’m in agreement with that expectation. It’s your responsibility to own your development and growth, and to be responsible for your work. Expecting your line manager to mentor and coach you is mid energy. It’s everyone’s self-responsibility, but even more so as you move up. This ownership goes equally to evaluating and demonstrating your performance.
I encouraged them to start to lead on the outcomes they wanted, and to use their anger to drive action. A potential strategy in this case is to write down their goals and plans for the quarter or year, and present them as a framework for evaluating their work. Refine the goals together, leaning on their manager’s strengths of understanding the business and stakeholders. This supports your busy manager—if you do it right they’ll appreciate you doing the work of evaluating yourself!
This hands-on manager (with their down energy) is already doing this for their teamies. Now it’s time for them to learn to do the same work up.
