Managing Up: The Leadership Skill for Everyone

Nicole Clayton
Sep 26
3 min read

Big picture + others’ perspectives = less friction, more flow.

Why Managing Up Matters

“Managing up” is one of those workplace phrases that can make people bristle. It sometimes carries the whiff of manipulation: Are you trying to curry favor? Angle for visibility? Make your boss’s life easier at the expense of your own?

But when you strip away the baggage, managing up is not about flattery or politics. It’s about influence and partnership. It’s about shaping how you collaborate with your boss so both of you can succeed. Done well, managing up is one of the most under-recognized forms of leadership in any workplace.

The reality is, no matter where you sit on the org chart, your ability to manage the relationship with the person above you can be the difference between burnout and balance, between friction and flow.

What Managing Up Actually Is

Managing up is not about saying “yes” to everything. It’s not about doing someone else’s work. It’s about alignment. It’s about making sure that your priorities, communication, and problem-solving style are complementary to the leader you report to.

At its heart, managing up looks like this:

Understanding your leader’s pressures. What metrics keep them up at night? What constraints shape their choices?
Communicating in their language. Do they want the 20-page report, or the three-bullet summary?
Anticipating needs. Offering context or solutions before small cracks become structural problems.
Building trust. Showing that you are reliable, candid, and aligned with shared goals.

It’s less about hierarchy and more about clarity — the kind of clarity that makes work smoother for everyone involved.

What It Looks Like in Practice

Managing up doesn’t usually come with a big reveal or grand gesture. It shows up in the ordinary:

Translating details into priorities. Instead of handing over a dense spreadsheet, you frame it: “In tomorrow’s meeting, you’ll be asked about costs. These three numbers are the ones to have on hand.”
Framing challenges constructively. Not “the project is falling apart,” but “we’ve hit a delay here, and here are two paths forward.”
Protecting their time. Grouping questions, anticipating what you can decide without them, and running interference when distractions pile up.
Clarifying expectations. Asking, “When you need this by Friday, do you mean end of day or before your 9 a.m. review?”

Each of these actions reduces friction. They make it easier for leaders to do their jobs — which, in turn, makes it easier for you to do yours.

Common Myths About Managing Up

It’s worth naming the misconceptions head-on:

“It’s manipulative.” Done well, it’s the opposite: it’s transparent, constructive, and collaborative.
“It’s not my job.” If you interact with a boss, managing that relationship is part of your job. Ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear.
“It means doing their work.” No. It means giving them the right context to do their work better — so your own work can move forward without constant roadblocks.

Why It Matters for Culture

Here’s the bigger payoff: when managing up becomes the norm, the culture changes. Leaders make fewer decisions in a vacuum. Communication flows more naturally. Teams feel more agency and less like passive recipients of orders.

And maybe most importantly, it challenges the myth that leaders are omniscient. They aren’t. They’re practitioners of finance, of operations, of marketing, of medicine and who also happen to carry decision-making authority. They need trusted voices around them who provide clarity, context, and challenge. Managing up is one of the ways we become those voices.

Closing Reflection

Managing up is not about deference. It’s about agency. It’s about using influence instead of waiting. It’s about being precise where others are vague. It’s about stepping into the leadership role you already hold, even if your title doesn’t advertise it.

If leadership is what you bring to the table, then managing up is one of the most impactful tools you have. It’s not just a professional skill, it’s a cultural lever. And when you pull it thoughtfully, you don’t just improve your relationship with your boss. You help shift the culture of the entire organization.