North Mondays Series, Episode 167

In April this year, Nigerians watched a quiet but instructive case study in managing up play out in real time. Taiwo Oyedele was appointed Minister of State for Finance in March, a junior position working alongside the substantive minister, Wale Edun. By April, in the space of barely a month, he had been elevated to Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, one of the most powerful economic offices in the country. Commentators pointed to his command of fiscal policy and his years leading the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms. But beneath the technical credentials was something more instructive for the rest of us: a textbook demonstration of how a capable professional builds enough trust, clarity, and credibility with the people above them that elevation becomes the natural next step rather than something they have to fight for.

Most professionals will never sit in a federal cabinet. But every professional, in every organisation, faces a version of the same challenge. You report to someone. That person has authority over your resources, your visibility, your opportunities, and often your career trajectory. And the way you manage that relationship, whether you do it well or do it badly, shapes outcomes far beyond what your technical skill alone can determine.

Managing up is one of the most underrated, least taught, and most consequential skills in professional life. It is not about manipulation. It is not about flattery. It is the disciplined practice of understanding what the people above you need, communicating in a way that earns their trust, and influencing their decisions without ever overstepping the boundaries of your role.

In this episode of the North Mondays Series, we examine what managing up actually means, why it matters at every level of a career, and how to do it with integrity and genuine effectiveness.

What Managing Up Actually Means

Managing up is frequently misunderstood as a form of political manoeuvring, the professional equivalent of telling your boss what they want to hear in order to get ahead. That misunderstanding causes many capable, principled people to avoid the practice altogether, leaving their best thinking and their most important concerns unheard by the very people who could act on them.

Properly understood, managing up is the art of making your relationship with the people above you work better for everyone involved. It means understanding their priorities well enough to align your work with what matters most to them. It means communicating in a way that respects their time and cognitive load. It means raising concerns, proposing ideas, and pushing back on decisions in a manner that strengthens trust rather than eroding it.

This is not a soft skill in the dismissive sense that phrase sometimes carries. It is one of the highest leverage skills available to any professional, because the decisions made by the people above you, about resources, priorities, opportunities, and protection, shape your professional reality more than almost anything else you control directly. We touched on a related dynamic in Episode 162 on decision fatigue: leaders above you are operating with finite cognitive resources, and the professionals who manage up well are the ones who understand this and adapt their approach accordingly.

Reflection Question: Think about your most important working relationship with someone above you in your organisation. Is that relationship currently working for both of you, or mostly for one side?

Why Managing Up Is a Skill Every Professional Needs

It is tempting to think that managing up only matters for the ambitious, the people chasing promotion or visibility. That is a narrow view of what the skill actually protects and enables.

Here is why it matters regardless of your career stage or ambition level:

Your best ideas need air time to matter

A brilliant insight that never reaches the person who can act on it has no value to your organisation. Managing up well means understanding how to position your ideas so they reach decision makers in a form they can actually engage with, at a time when they have the capacity to consider them properly.

Your resources depend on someone else’s trust in you

Budget, headcount, time, and authority are almost never granted purely on the basis of demonstrated competence. They are granted to people that decision makers trust to use them well. Managing up is how that trust is built deliberately rather than left to chance.

Your protection in difficult moments depends on this relationship

When something goes wrong, and in every career, something eventually does, the strength of your relationship with the people above you determines whether you are given the benefit of the doubt, the context to explain, and the support to recover. That protection is not automatic. It is earned in the months and years before the difficult moment arrives.

Your growth is shaped by who advocates for you in rooms you are not in

The conversations that determine your next opportunity often happen without you present. Whether you are spoken of favourably in those rooms depends almost entirely on the relationship you have built with the people having the conversation. This connects directly to Relationship Positioning: the goal is to be the kind of professional that decision makers remember favourably and advocate for, even when you are not the one asking.

Managing Up Without Overstepping: Where the Line Actually Is

The fear that holds most professionals back from managing up effectively is the fear of overstepping. Of seeming presumptuous, political, or disrespectful of hierarchy. That fear is understandable, but it often causes people to swing too far in the opposite direction, becoming so deferential that their genuine value and perspective never reach the people who need it.

Understanding where the actual line sits removes much of that fear.

Overstepping is about authority, not initiative

Managing up does not mean making decisions that are not yours to make. It does not mean going over someone’s head, undermining their authority in front of others, or acting as though you have decision rights you have not been given. Initiative, by contrast, is welcomed in almost every healthy organisation. Bringing well prepared recommendations, surfacing problems early, and proposing solutions are not overstepping. They are exactly what good managing up looks like.

Timing and forum matter as much as content

The same idea, raised in the right context, builds trust. Raised in the wrong context, the same idea damages it. A concern raised privately, with care for how it lands, is managing up. The identical concern raised publicly, in a way that embarrasses the person above you, is not, regardless of how valid the underlying point may be.

Respecting the decision after making your case is not weakness

Good managing up includes making your case clearly, with evidence and conviction, and then respecting the final decision once it has been made, even when it differs from your recommendation. This is the discipline we explored in Episode 158 on strategic patience: knowing when to push your perspective and when to accept that the decision has been made and your energy is better spent executing it well.

How to Manage Up Effectively: A Practical Framework

Managing up is a practice, built through consistent habits rather than a single dramatic gesture. Here is a framework for doing it well:

1. Understand what your manager is actually measured on

Every person above you in an organisation has their own set of pressures, targets, and accountabilities that shape what they care about. Understanding what your manager is judged on, by their own superiors, by the board, by the organisation’s broader goals, allows you to frame your work, your requests, and your recommendations in terms that connect directly to what matters to them.

This is a form of intelligence gathering that deserves the same rigour we apply externally. Competitive Intelligence is about understanding your external landscape well enough to act with foresight. Understanding your manager’s internal landscape, their pressures, their incentives, their constraints, is the same discipline applied inward.

2. Communicate in the format that respects their time and decision style

Some leaders want detail. Others want a one line summary with the option to dig deeper. Some prefer written briefs they can review at their own pace. Others prefer a quick verbal update. Managing up effectively means adapting your communication style to match how the person above you actually processes information, not how you would prefer to deliver it. This is directly connected to what we explored in Episode 160 on unclear communication: clarity is defined by what the receiver needs, not by what feels complete to the sender.

3. Bring solutions, not just problems

Raising a concern without a recommended path forward places the entire cognitive burden of resolution on the person above you. Raising a concern alongside two or three considered options, with your own recommendation clearly stated, demonstrates that you have already done the thinking and respects their time enough to make the decision easier rather than harder.

4. Make their job easier, not just your own visible

The professionals who manage up most effectively are the ones whose presence genuinely makes the lives of the people above them easier. They anticipate needs before being asked. They flag risks early rather than letting them surface as surprises. They deliver complete work rather than work that requires significant rework or follow up.

This orientation, focusing on genuinely serving the other person rather than performing for them, is the same philosophy at the heart of Selling Without Feeling Like You Are Selling. Managing up that is genuinely useful does not feel like managing. It feels like reliable partnership.

5. Ask for feedback before you need it

Waiting for an annual review to learn how you are perceived is a missed opportunity. Professionals who manage up well ask for feedback regularly, in low stakes moments, creating a habit of open communication that makes it far easier to receive and act on difficult feedback when it eventually comes.

6. Build credibility through consistency, not through moments

Trust with the people above you is built the same way trust is built in any relationship: through consistent, reliable behaviour over time, not through occasional impressive performances. The promises you keep on small things matter more cumulatively than any single standout achievement. This is the same compounding logic behind Strategic Networking: relationships, including the one with your own manager, are built through deliberate, consistent investment, not through occasional grand gestures.

7. Know when to escalate and how to do it well

There will be moments when you genuinely disagree with a decision, or when you believe a serious risk is being underestimated. Managing up well means knowing how to escalate that concern through the appropriate channel, with appropriate evidence, in a way that respects the hierarchy even as you challenge a specific decision. The professionals who do this well are trusted with difficult truths precisely because they have demonstrated they will deliver those truths responsibly.

Managing Up Across Different Relationship Dynamics

Managing up is not a single technique applied uniformly. It adapts to the specific dynamic between you and the person above you.

Managing up to a hands-on manager

With a manager who wants to be closely involved in the details of your work, the priority is frequent, structured updates that give them the visibility they need without requiring them to chase you for it. Anticipate their questions before they ask. Bring data and context proactively.

Managing up to a hands-off manager

With a manager who prefers to delegate broadly and stay at a distance, the priority shifts. Clear, periodic summaries that confirm you are on track, flagged early if something requires their input, respect their preference for autonomy while still keeping them appropriately informed.

Managing up to a new manager

When a new leader arrives above you, the relationship begins from zero, regardless of your tenure or track record with previous leadership. Invest early in understanding their priorities, communication style, and expectations. Do not assume that what worked with your previous manager will translate automatically.

Managing up across a layer, to your manager’s manager

Occasionally you will have direct interaction with someone two levels above you. This requires particular care: contribute clearly and confidently when given the opportunity, but be mindful not to position yourself in a way that appears to bypass or undermine your direct manager. The communication discipline required here is significant: clarity about your role and your respect for the existing reporting structure should be evident in every interaction.

Common Mistakes That Undermine Managing Up

• Avoiding difficult conversations until problems become too large to manage quietly
• Bringing only problems and complaints, without proposed solutions or recommendations
• Communicating in a format that suits the sender rather than the receiver
• Going around a manager to a more senior leader without good reason or appropriate context
• Confusing managing up with flattery, which erodes credibility rather than building it
• Waiting for an annual review to seek feedback rather than asking for it consistently
• Failing to follow through on commitments, which is the fastest way to destroy the trust managing up depends on
• Assuming that technical competence alone will be recognised without any deliberate effort to communicate it clearly

Every one of these mistakes is avoidable. None of them requires a personality change. They require attention, discipline, and a genuine commitment to making the relationship work in both directions.

Key Takeaways

• Managing up is the disciplined practice of building trust and communicating effectively with the people above you, not political manoeuvring
• It matters at every career stage because resources, protection, and growth opportunities all flow through this relationship
• The line between managing up and overstepping is about authority and timing, not about initiative or honest communication
• Effective managing up requires understanding what your manager is measured on and adapting your communication to their style
• Bringing solutions alongside problems, and following through consistently on commitments, builds the credibility that managing up depends on
• The approach should adapt to the specific relationship dynamic, whether your manager is hands on, hands off, new, or several levels above you

North Mondays Action Plan

• Identify what your manager is currently measured on by their own superiors, and consider how your work could be framed more directly in those terms
• Review your last three updates to your manager: were they in the format and level of detail they actually prefer, or the one that was easiest for you to produce?
• The next time you raise a concern upward, bring at least one recommended path forward alongside it
• Ask your manager directly for feedback this week, before your next scheduled review. Use the same proactive instinct that drives good strategic follow-up in client relationships
• If you have a new manager, schedule a conversation specifically to understand their priorities and preferred communication style. Use the From Plans to Pathways: Execution Frameworks approach to translate what you learn into how you actually operate day to day
• Identify one small, recent commitment to your manager and confirm you followed through on it completely. Consistency on the small things is the foundation everything else is built on

Reflection Prompt: If your manager were asked today to describe what makes you easy or difficult to work with, what would they say, and is that the answer you want them to give?

Final Note

Managing up well is not about becoming someone you are not in order to please the people above you. It is about becoming genuinely easier to trust, easier to delegate to, and easier to rely on, because you have taken the time to understand what the people above you actually need from the relationship.

The professionals who rise fastest and most sustainably are rarely the loudest or the most aggressively self promoting. They are the ones who have quietly, consistently built the kind of trust that makes elevation feel inevitable rather than contested.

That is the real lesson behind every rapid, well earned promotion you will ever observe, in government, in business, or in your own organisation. It was rarely a single moment. It was the accumulated result of a relationship managed with care, long before the opportunity arrived.

Build that relationship deliberately. The doors it opens will surprise you.

— Nnanna Alu