Managing Up

1. Managing Up is Your Key to Career Success.

Managing up is about you taking charge of your workplace experience.

Your boss matters. Your relationship with your boss significantly impacts your career trajectory and opportunities. While we wish the workplace was a pure meritocracy, the reality is that your boss's perception and experience of you heavily influence your success and advancement within the organization. Building strong, productive relationships upward is crucial.

Everybody manages up. Regardless of your title, most people spend more time reporting to those above them than managing those below. This makes the ability to effectively manage up a universal and critical skill. It's not about being a sycophant, but about consciously developing relationships to increase cooperation and collaboration across different power levels and perspectives for mutual benefit.

Stop complaining, start winning. Instead of waiting for the "unicorn" boss or lamenting unfairness, take responsibility for your career. Managing up empowers you by shifting your focus from what your boss should do to what you can do. This proactive approach helps you thrive with the boss you have, making you a better leader in the process.

2. Focus on What You Can Control: Your Actions, Not Theirs.

You can't change how they deal with you, but you can change how you deal with them.

Accept reality. Your boss's personality and management style are unlikely to change just because you want them to. Their approach has likely been reinforced by their own success or organizational dynamics. Waiting for them to adapt is often a futile exercise that hinders your own progress.

Choice is empowerment. When faced with a difficult situation with your boss, you have three primary choices: change the situation (difficult as you can't change others), leave the situation (a valid option sometimes), or accept and adapt to the situation (managing up). The one non-choice is victimhood, which is disempowering and detrimental to your career and well-being.

Adapt your approach. Since you cannot change your boss's core nature, the most effective strategy is to change your own behavior and interactions. By understanding their style and preferences, you can subtly adjust how you communicate, deliver information, and build rapport. This adaptation is not about sacrificing integrity but about strategic choices for success.

3. Become a Boss Detective: Understand Their Style & Drivers.

Before you begin to manage up, you need to have a good sense of what you are managing up to.

Assess your boss. To manage up effectively, you must first understand who your boss is and what makes them tick. Become a detective, observing their behaviors, priorities, goals, concerns, and communication preferences. Ask questions (to them or others) to gather clues objectively.

Key questions to ask:

• What is their workstyle personality?
• How do they prefer information and communication?
• What are their priorities, goals, and pressures?
• What are their pet peeves and what truly matters to them?
• What are their expectations for you and the team?

Assess yourself. Equally important is a rigorous self-assessment. Understand your own workstyle, preferences, strengths, weaknesses, and what you need to perform at your best. Honestly evaluate your contribution to the dynamic and what you might be resisting. This dual assessment provides the landscape for strategic action.

4. Master the Innie/Outie Dynamic: Adapt Your Communication & Energy.

Building and maintaining a successful working relationship with your boss requires communicating effectively and making sure you are working with their source of energy and not against it.

Introvert vs. Extrovert. Understanding whether your boss leans toward introversion (Innie) or extroversion (Outie) is a fundamental step. This preference impacts their source of energy (internal vs. external) and communication style. Most managers operate primarily from their own preference, not yours.

Managing the Innie Boss:

• Take initiative to schedule meetings.
• Give them time to process; provide topics in advance.
• Keep them informed with brief updates (email often preferred).
• Be okay with silence; don't over-chatter.
• Invest in one-on-one relationship building over time.

Managing the Outie Boss:

• Engage in conversation; listen actively.
• Be friendly and show interest in relationship building.
• Speak up and share ideas, even if not fully formed.
• Clarify and recap conversations to ensure alignment.
• Make time for face-to-face interaction; they gain energy from it.

Adapt your style. Whether you are an Innie working for an Outie, an Outie for an Innie, or even the same type, consciously adapting your communication and interaction style to align with your boss's preference will significantly improve your working relationship and effectiveness.

5. Navigate Workstyle Personalities: Align with Energizers, Advancers, Harmonizers, & Evaluators.

The key here is to understand the similarities and differences between you and your boss so that you can adapt your behavior accordingly.

The Platinum Rule. Beyond Innie/Outie, understanding your boss's dominant workstyle personality—Energizer, Advancer, Harmonizer, or Evaluator—is crucial. These styles dictate how they interact, make decisions, prioritize, and what they value. Treat others as they would like to be treated.

Key characteristics:

• Energizer: Fast-paced, people-focused, idea-oriented, loves brainstorming, easily bored by routine.
• Advancer: Fast-paced, task-focused, results-oriented, decisive, seeks control, dislikes inefficiency.
• Harmonizer: Moderate-paced, people-focused, values relationships/harmony, conflict-averse, seeks consensus.
• Evaluator: Moderate-paced, task-focused, values quality/accuracy, methodical, relies on data, avoids risk.

Adapt your approach. For each style, specific strategies are more effective. For an Advancer, be brief, business-like, and bring solutions. For an Energizer, show enthusiasm and help them execute ideas. For a Harmonizer, focus on teamwork and frame ideas around safety or cohesion. For an Evaluator, be prepared with details, facts, and respect their process.

6. Apply Targeted Strategies for Common Difficult Bosses.

Learning to manage a difficult boss means being able to adapt a strategic perspective.

Difficult comes in shades. While great bosses share traits, difficult bosses are diverse, often resulting from the overuse or underuse of certain behaviors. Common types include Micromanagers, Ghosts, Narcissists, Impulsives, Pushovers, BFFs, Workaholics, Incompetents, and Nitpickers/Seagulls.

Understand the drivers. Difficult behaviors often stem from insecurity, fear, inexperience, perfectionism, apathy, or a need to please. Identifying the root cause helps you choose appropriate strategies, focusing on building trust, providing information, setting boundaries, or compensating for weaknesses.

Tailor your tactics. Each difficult type requires specific management-up techniques:

• Micromanager: Stay ahead, over-inform, deliver high-quality work consistently.
• Ghost: Step up, clarify boundaries, initiate communication, find other mentors.
• Pushover: Encourage, support, fill the vacuum, make them look good.
• Workaholic: Get results, prioritize productivity, align boundaries, promote your progress.
• Incompetent: Pinpoint problems, offer empathy, show them the way, step up and compensate.

7. Recognize the "Truly Terrible" and Prioritize Your Escape.

You can't win with the Truly Terrible.

Beyond difficult. The Truly Terrible boss (psycho, bully, tyrant, etc.) is different from merely difficult. Their behavior is often pathological, characterized by frequent and severe abuse, manipulation, blame, and lack of empathy. They damage health, morale, and productivity, yet organizations often fail to act.

Signs of the Terrible: Yelling, blaming, unreasonable demands, threats, insults, rages, ethical breaches, exclusion, inconsistency, taking credit, exploitation, pitting people against each other, condescension, duplicity, humiliation, extreme impatience, need to be right, demanding loyalty while betraying it. Assess frequency and severity.

Survival is key. Conventional managing-up strategies often fail with the Truly Terrible because they lack the capacity or desire to change. Your primary focus shifts to survival and planning your exit. Protect your psyche, maintain professionalism, distance yourself, activate your support network, and document everything. Getting out is paramount for your well-being.

8. Know When It's Okay—Even Necessary—to Quit.

Quitting is an act of courage.

Not a dirty word. While persistence is valuable, quitting is not always a sign of weakness. Sometimes, it is the most courageous and empowering choice you can make for your career and well-being, especially when faced with a truly toxic or damaging situation that cannot be managed or changed.

Assess the situation. Ask yourself honestly: Can I live with this behavior? Is it worth the cost to my health, growth, or values? Have I exhausted all reasonable managing-up strategies? If the situation is damaging and unchangeable, staying is detrimental.

Plan your exit. If quitting is the right path, plan it strategically. Update your resume, leverage your network, and seek new opportunities while you are still employed, if possible. Leaving a toxic environment is not failure; it is self-preservation and opens the door to healthier, more fulfilling opportunities.

Last updated: June 24, 2025