Hello friends. Welcome to Unleash Your Leadership. My name is Priyanka Shinde. I am a leadership coach for emerging leaders in tech. I'm a founder and a technical program management leader. I'm fascinated by people and how they integrate with the tech world. I believe every individual has a leader in the making.
Often this leader is buried under the weight of expectations, fears, and self doubt. My job is to break through those shackles. And unleash your true leadership potential. I help you find your strengths, amplify your voice and achieve breakthroughs to bring forth your leadership for the world to experience.
So if you're an ambitious leader or one in the making, this podcast is for you. Remember, leadership is not a position. It is a state of mind.
One of the polls I had done about a few weeks back Managing up was a topic that a lot of you wanted to hear about. So today I'm going to share my thoughts on managing up and why it is a crucial part to your career success. So let's get started. First, what is managing up? Now, this is a term that has come up more so in the last, I would say, eight, 10 years.
And what it means essentially is that every individual, you as an individual, be an individual contributor, an IC or a manager, doesn't matter, but you are responsible for managing your relationships with your management chain. So your manager and managers, manager, and so on. And how you do that is managing up.
So how do you work with your management chain? Most often you're a direct manager. How do you work with them on a daily basis? And how does that align with your career? A lot of times we talk about managing up and it feels like it is a responsibility of the person, right? Like, why am I responsible? For everything.
Should my manager, should my boss be responsible also for my career development and my growth? And while that is true, what happens is a lot of times as you get into people management, be a first line manager or hire, there are a lot of things happening for that manager. While they are invested in your success, it may not often be where they know everything you want.
They cannot necessarily read your mind. So you have to tell them what you want. If you tell them what you want, if you tell them where you want to go, then they can help you, but they would not know it if you wouldn't say anything. So that's one part of it. The second is managers are often working on multiple different priorities.
If you take control and if you take charge, then it's easier for that manager to work through it because then they don't have to keep up with all the context of every single person that reports to them. Managers also have anywhere from five to 10 to 15 reports, sometimes even more than that. And the more reports they have, the harder it gets.
But besides the report, they are also working with a bunch more stakeholders. So working with them, managing across is something managers have to do a lot. If you take control of your conversations, of your opportunities, then that helps the manager out. At the end of the day, you are the one person who's fully responsible for your own career growth, your own career development, and where it goes.
There is nobody else invested in your success more than you. It is up to you to do the managing. You have the reins. You have the control on how you steer the conversations and how might it help your career. That is one of the single most reasons I will say why you have to manage up. It's because you own your career.
Nobody else owns your career for you. And while good managers will definitely invest in you, they will work for you to make your career goals happen. It is up to you to let them know. Now, why is managing up important? We talked about career goals, of course, you know, managing your careers, getting success, uh, in your professional career, but the three tangible things that really come up are your performance, your How do you get the most out of your performance reviews?
Your manager needs to know what you did in order to then help you with the performance review and get you the performance rating that aligns most with the work and that you did and the impact you had. The second, of course, a lot of times is promotions. This is a very tangible aspect of your career growth.
Every promotion takes you higher up the ladder somewhere. Your manager is the best person who can help you get that promotion. But your manager needs to know what you need, what you have done, what is the impact you have, and then they can use that as the foundation to start working on your promotion.
And so you are going to drive that conversation. And finally, opportunities. The way to get good performance reviews or get a promotion is to have the right opportunities. The right opportunities that stretch you, that make you go above and beyond, that help you develop skills that are needed at that next level.
If you don't have those opportunities, it might be multiple years you might be in the same position, it's not going to get you that promotion, or it might not get you like an exceeds rating. These are the reasons why you need to have the right opportunities. And the one person that can give you those right opportunities is your manager.
So if you talk about, here are the skills I need to build, here's my long term goal, here is the kind of work I want to do. That's when your manager is going to say, ah, I have an opportunity that might help you do that. So they will then align you to the opportunities that are in service of your long term goals.
So that's why you need to know how to manage up. You need to learn if you haven't done so on how to manage up and you need to be able to advocate for yourself. I've talked about advocating for yourself previously, so I won't get into a lot more details here. Managing up involves a lot of advocating for yourself, talking about what you have done, what you want to do, where you want to go, and you can't shy away from that.
So when you're managing up, there is two things, right? That is you and then there is your manager. When you go into a managing up type of a conversation and it's not labeled like that, you are going to go and it's like, oh, I need to have this conversation because it's in service of me and I'm going to eventually benefit out of for your manager.
It is what's in it for me. Every individual thinks about what's in it for me, and so you have to understand your manager. That's why you need to develop. Empathy as a skill, because the more you understand your manager, what motivates them, what makes them tick? How do they respond to certain things? What kind of information do they need?
Put yourself in that manager's shoes, and that will help you understand how they think. Because when you know, when you understand how they think, how they operate, you can work with them better. And the managing up also becomes much easier. Keep in mind that when you go into these conversations, it is also about them.
What is the benefit to them and how can you help them? So every one on one you have with your manager is a managing up conversation. First thing I want you to do is have regular one on ones with your manager. At the least, it should be weekly. I think weekly, bi weekly also feels a little bit too far off.
Unless your manager has like 20, 30 reports, I think that will eventually happen. Keep a regular weekly schedule. And you are responsible for coming up with the agenda. You need to go into that. Here's the conversation I want to have. The number one thing that you want to do have regular one on ones weekly with your manager and you drive the agenda for most part of the meeting, your manager might have things on their plate as on their agenda as well.
Every conversation can go a certain way and we'll come to that. Every quarter you can say, Oh, let's make this a career oriented conversation. So where you exclusively talk about what are your career goals, how you want to operate in the next quarter or the next two quarters and things like that. Not every one on one has to be a career conversation, but you definitely want to have it at a quarterly basis.
And then in the other one on ones, you're probably going to talk about what's going on currently with you or with your manager. A one-on-one doesn't have to be where you're waving a status update on your projects. That is absolutely not what it is meant to be. Status updates, project this, all of those can happen in team meetings or in standups or other project meetings where your manager maybe there or there could be other ways of informing your manager of the status.
So utilize your one on one to do more than just that. Ideally, you don't want to discuss the status of it. It could be where you want some ideas from that person and that's fine. So once you have your one on ones set up and you think about what is it on the agenda, there could be a few ways you go about this.
One is you can talk about what are the things you're seeing today. So what is happening with your project or other projects, how might that be related and get, get your manager's opinion on something. You have a certain solution or a certain idea and you're trying to get brainstormed with them on their opinions.
This tells them, tells them your thought process. It's not a status, but this is where you align with your manager, like how you're going about things. So in a way they can still know what you're working on, what is the type of work you're doing, what is the impact it has, and maybe if there are ways he or she can help, then they will bring up that.
The second thing you want to do is ask questions. Ask your managers lots of specific but open ended questions. It could be as simple as what is going on for you or how are we approaching this particular issue. Or what keeps you up at night? So it could be any of these questions. It could be something where, you know, of a certain, a business related stuff that's coming down and you have heard about it, ask them about it.
What are they doing? Maybe there is a reorg happening somewhere. Ask them about it. There are so many things that your manager might be involved in, and you need to be aware of that. And the way you build that awareness is through asking questions. So ask them questions because that is the way you get to the next thing, which is you uncover problems.
So based on the work you're doing, you have some view of the problems that are around you. Not, not just project problems, but things that are a little bit sort of cutting across projects or maybe across teams. So But also talking to a manager helps you, oh, this is what this person is dealing with. This is what's happening with this other stakeholder.
Maybe this team or these priority ships are coming down the pipeline and we need to be ready. Once you have that and you un you start uncovering these problems, then that is your way to figure out, oh, here's how these problems are connected. So you start connecting the dots, or maybe you have some information that you can share that will help them.
tackle a problem. So now you start getting into thinking about solving problems. And this is where it's really important. What can you do to solve problems for your manager? Because your manager is probably dealing with 10 different, 15 different things. Can you take one or two things off their plate? And can you fit it into your schedule, your availability?
When you solve problems for them, it builds trust in you. It builds credibility. Your manager is relieved that they have somebody to fall back on. It establishes you as a leader for them. Somebody who would be ready to help you. to do their job if they had to go to the next level. So again, this is very important from both sides for you, because of course you want to grow up and you, you want to get to the next level.
So you want to do things that your manager might be trying to do. Not necessarily because you're going to take their role, but also just to go up a level, but at the same time, your manager, if an opportunity comes for them to do something bigger, if they don't have leaders in place that they can trust, it's hard for them to move out of that role.
So even if you are a manager and you're trying to now managing up to your senior manager, it's the same thing for you. So the managing of, like I said, goes for all individual contributors, as well as every manager, director, whoever, as long as you have a boss, You have to manage it. It doesn't matter how much, how many people report into you or nobody reports into you.
Once you can solve problems, you're offering support, right? Ask the manager how you can help. In some cases, you might have ideas and you can say, can I just take this on and go solve it? Or you can say, can I help you there? If you don't necessarily know what solution you can provide. It's okay. Offer support.
Ask them, can you help, or what can you help with? And maybe it's not the whole problem, you might help with a subset of things. That will also have the managers like, okay, you're willing to help. You have a lot of things going on, but you're willing to help. So again, it helps them think about you as the go to person.
And then they're also very much well aligned with the work you're doing, because those are priorities that they are giving to you. It could also be where those opportunities come from. So offer them help. Like I said earlier, think like them, what might their responses be like? Or when might they be more willing to take your offer?
Sometimes in some one on ones they might be too frazzled. You know, something might be going on. Maybe that might not be the right time, but maybe another one on one is, or maybe an offline conversation. As you work with them, start understanding them, what triggers them, what motivates them, what would have them relieved.
This will also just help you maintain a good relationship because you can anticipate what your manager. Might be thinking or might respond. And this is also a way to build strong relationships with your management. We talk, I talked about strong, building strong relationships. Uh, last week, your relationship with your manager is one of the most important ones.
The way to build those relationships is through the trust and credibility that you will have by solving the problems that your manager is worried about. Think about how your current conversations are going on with your manager. Note down things that are going well, that are not going well, and what needs to change.
Are you managing up effectively? How are your one on one conversations? Are you having regular one on one conversations? Oftentimes I also see when nobody has an agenda, these meetings get canceled and they can get canceled every week. And you no longer are in touch with your manager. Don't wait for a performance review cycle to have conversations about your career.
Have them regularly. Assess your current one on ones, your relationship with a manager, and start thinking about how is the best way to manage up. Here's the thing I want to be very clear on. Managing up doesn't mean that you're becoming a yes person. You're not necessarily just giving in to whatever they say.
That is not what managing up is. There can be a confusion on, is it just sort of appeasing the manager and saying yes to everything or sort of being in their good books all the time? You can challenge certain decisions and you can challenge certain thoughts. Do it with data, do it with artifacts. That's how you challenge people.
It doesn't have to be a subjective opinion. I can guarantee you that managing up will really help you advance in your career. So take note of those things. Take on some action items. What would you do in the next week to improve your one on ones? Which of the things that I talked, told you about in terms of asking questions?
finding out problems, offering support, solving their problems, having career conversations. Which of these things do you need to do? I would love to hear from you on feedback on this topic. What are your thoughts? How have you done it successfully? Or where might you have run into challenges that I didn't talk about today?
Send me a note, message me, and I would love to connect with you. I hope to see you next week again with another topic. Until then, have a great day. See you all soon. Thank you for tuning in. I can't wait to reconnect with you next week on another episode of Unleash Your Leadership. My name is Priyanka Shinde and I encourage you to tap into your full self to create a fulfilling work life.
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