Managing Up for Leaders
Transform your relationship with leadership from a reporting line into a high-trust strategic partnership.
Help the user with managing up for leaders using insights from 21 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter.
How to Help
- Audit current communication - Identify if the user is currently reactive or proactive in their updates and how they handle disagreement.
- Structure the operating cadence - Provide templates for weekly updates that surface blockers and priorities before the manager has to ask.
- Script difficult conversations - Draft specific language for pushing back on ideas or asking for resources using business-centered framing.
- Map the trust building path - Use the Meat and Potatoes framework to show how executing on core tasks earns the right to pursue bigger swings.
Core Principles
Deb Liu: "It looks like self-promotion. I wouldn't want to do that because it's self-promotion. But instead, what if I called it educating about all the great work your team has been doing? Helping people see why your team should get more resources, you have to actually share what you do."
Overcome the discomfort of visibility by viewing it as a responsibility to educate leadership about your team's value and resource needs.
Shift from pushback to business success
Jason Shah: "It starts from a place of I need to disagree, I need to say no. It's a very negative mindset, purely based on the word that has come to label a behavior that alternatively could be about how do I shift the direction on something, or how do I help the business actually succeed when I disagree with somebody about something, and that's a very different mindset."
Avoid the phrase 'push back' as it creates a sense of opposition. Instead, reframe disagreement as an attempt to pivot the team toward better business outcomes.
Prioritize dialogue over being right
Kenneth Berger: "Often what I try to introduce people to, and I've learned all this stuff the hard way, believe me, is it's fundamentally disrespectful to go into a meeting already deciding that you're right and the other person is wrong because you can't know that for sure."
Successful relationships are built on the humility to realize you cannot be certain you are right. Approach meetings as an open back-and-forth to uncover new perspectives.
Templates & Frameworks
- The Magic Loop (The Magic Loop) - A five-step repeatable framework for systematically growing your career within a company by building a collaborative relationship with your manager
- Three-Step Process for Saying No (Saying no) - A structured approach for responding to manager ideas: Listen → Form your POV → Respond constructively
- Manager Communication Template (Autonomy Template) (Becoming a senior Product Manager) - A 3-step template for sharing challenges and decisions with your manager that demonstrates capability, earns trust, and opens the door for feedback without soun
- Alignment-Confidence Matrix (Managing Up) (Ravi Mehta) - A framework for understanding your relationship currency with your manager based on alignment with their direction and their confidence in you
- Meat and Potatoes Before Soufflé Trust Framework (How to ship like a startup) - A framework for earning leadership trust to pursue your own ambitious product ideas
- Five Tactics for Managing Up (Managing up) - Lenny's five-part framework for effectively managing up with your manager at any level
- Questions to Ask When First Hearing a Manager's Idea (Saying no) - Five questions to ask before reacting to understand the manager's thinking and demonstrate open-mindedness
See references/artifacts.md for the full list with details.
Questions to Help Users
- "What is your current cadence for updating your manager on priorities and blockers?"
- "How do you typically handle a situation where your manager proposes an idea you disagree with?"
- "Are there specific areas where your manager's intuition and your data-driven approach are in conflict?"
- "To what extent does your manager understand the trade-offs your team is currently making?"
- "What is one high-priority task you could take off your manager's plate right now to build trust?"
Common Mistakes to Flag
- Reacting with an immediate no - This creates visceral opposition before you've listened to the underlying goal or asked clarifying questions.
- Hidden struggle - Leaders often let their teams struggle in isolation for too long rather than leveraging internal experts to unblock progress.
- Ignoring the protagonism trap - Focusing on your own career narrative rather than seeing yourself as a contributor to the organization's larger mission causes friction.
- Communicating only when there is a problem - This creates a reactive dynamic and keeps the manager in a state of anxiety regarding your team's progress.
Deep Dive
For all 31 sourced insights from 21 guests, see references/guest-insights.md
- Product Reviews
- Executive Communication
- Running Meetings
- Written Communication