And its absolutely crucial if youre angling for a raise or a promotion.
The following are five tips that are essential to managing up.
Figure out your managers communication style.
10'000 Hours
Do they prefer face-to-face meetings, or do they communicate primarily by sending Slack messages at 6 a.m.?
Are they always in their office, or do they roam the halls?
Are they always on Do Not Disturb with a blocked calendar?
(As with everything, its important to have boundaries here.
If youre not sure what makes yourmanagertick, check in with your colleagues or just ask your boss.
How would you prefer I keep you updated on whats happening?
2. verify you know what your manager thinks your job is.
Or that the feedback youre getting from your manager isnt helping you prioritize your day-to-day?
How they define what your role is (and what it isnt)2.
How they measure your success3.
Its for you to gather some crucial information that will inform your next steps.
you might handle this conversation in a couple different ways.
Can we talk about how you see my current role?
This approach is easier if these conversations are part of the company culture.
Next, confirm that what youre doing every day is aligned with your bosss expectations.
Or maybe youre informally helping coworkers with their own work or personnel challenges.
And that means when its performance-review time, youre more likely to be disappointed.
Get in the habit of not burying bad news.
Even if youre fantastic at your job, youre going to run into challenges.
Perhaps youre worried about a crucial upcoming deadline because youre struggling to complete a difficult task.
Maybe you know that theres a personnel issue on your team thats really affecting your colleagues.
For example, not every problem needs your managers immediate attention, or requires the same degree of involvement.
That relatively small but annoying issue you and your team were able to identify and resolve quickly?
No need for a string of real-time updates; you might raise that in passing in your next one-on-one.
Sorry, but you really do have to check in with them regularly.
Meetings with your manager can be stressful, if not outright terrifying.
But theyre an absolutely essential component of managing up.
But having regularly scheduled check-ins with your boss is crucial to maintaining that newfound alignment and avoiding negative surprises.
Once a week is ideal, but even once a month is better than nothing.
after you snag that meeting on the calendar, get yourself prepared.
