Managing Up

Today's topic is ticklish: managing up.

As I understand it, this term means trying to influence one's superior's expectations and behavior.

I suppose this term should mean "treating one's superiors as though they were subordinates" but that is overly literal. However, there is a high-level truth to the exaggeration: one is taking responsibility for the attitudes and actions of one's boss(es).

When I first encountered this concept, many moon ago, I found it silly. I was quite comfortable with the idea that those below me should do as I bid and those above me should bid me do whatever it was that I was supposed to do.

Over time, I understood that there was a legitimate "managing up" need: my superiors required context and feedback if they were going to make good decisions. So I grudgingly took on the task of keeping them informed, over and above what was strictly necessary.

Alas, what I see very frequently now in IT is feast or famine: either mid-level IT professionals do nothing but "manage up," leaving their direct reports wandering in the dark, or they do no managing up, leaving their superiors with ever-more-inaccurate world views.

Worse, many newish mid-level IT folks confuse "sucking up" with "managing up." They go out of their way to confirm their bosses prejudices and to avoid correcting mistaken impressions. This turns even well-meaning, talented senior managers into blunder idiots. If you don't know what works and what does not; and if you think the issues are different than they are, you will have great difficulty choosing an effective solution to the most pressing problem.

A sure sign that managing up is not working or not being done is this: there are resources and good staff working hard to accomplish their goals, but things just don't get any better over time. In fact, they get worse, although reorganizations and new software rollouts neither improve or degrade matters.

If you are working hard with decent people but the steady and amazing march of technology is not making your job easier or better, then you may have a managing up problem. If your superiors are reasonable people, start treating them as such. If your superiors punish bearers of bad news, then managing up is out and sucking up is in. May commerce have mercy on your career.