There is no getting around it, pretty much everyone working and leading in healthcare has a boss. Your relationship with your boss matters. Recall that well-used phrase ‘people don’t leave thier jobs, they leave their boss’. A positive and productive relationship with your boss benefits you in lots of ways:

Career advancement
Job satisfaction
Access to resources
Mentorship and coaching

We all have different skills and capabilities and we take those into our leadership roles, so at times you might hit barriers with your boss that lead you to exclaim (internally and to no one in particular) – I need to learn to manage up.

This episode of the Leadership Lounge podcast looked at managing up from a range of perspectives – with the intent to share the most magical advice I received when I said out loud to a mentor – how do I make the most of this opportunity to have a different conversation with my boss (long hand way of asking how do I manage up please).

Think about caring up – not managing up.

The most magical advice ever received shifted my perspective and how I thought about managing up. That’s your first question – what does managing up mean to you? Searching for definitions, I like the frame ‘building a productive working relationship with your boss’. This means this is a two-way thing, it’s not all about them or you, it’s about how you work together.

You care about the teams that report to you, you care about the work you do and the communities you serve. Healthcare is a ‘caring’ profession. Think about what the world could look like if we all took a moment, turned around and cared up.

Your boss is probably busy, probably stretched and probably working out how to talk to thier boss. So they need the best from you, so it’s a good time to get clear on how that happens. It’s not a fluffy conversation, it’s a hard conversation that leads to effective and productive working. It’s a conversation worth investing in, so you can both get the most from each other, saving time, headaches and frustrations.

How do you like to receive feedback?
What time of day do you do your best work?
Are we on the same page about success in this role?
How do both our roles fit into the bigger picture of what we are trying to achieve?
Text, email or phone?

Managing up is not about manipulation or self-promotion. It's about creating value and building a partnership that is mutually beneficial.

Ask yourself who your boss is at thier best. When have you seen them shine and excel? What are they doing when they are in a state of flow? If you don’t know or need to build a clearer picture, observe, ask and listen. Why do they do the job they do and what impact are they trying to have?

With that image of them at thier best and most purposeful now consider how you can build a productive relationship with them. What style of communication is going to work best for them? What can you do to make thier day better?

Managing up is about building a relationship with your manager so that you can have candid dialogues without it feeling threatening

Dawn Beck

Now, managing up is not sucking up. It’s important that you can and do escalate issues that need to be escalated. ‘No surprises’ is one way of looking at it, crucially this can be about people’s safety and wellbeing. Your boss doesn’t need to hear all the good stuff and neither should you be making it all look marvellous when there are so real issues that need resolving. Working on them together is what a productive relationship with your boss looks like.

The more I looked the more I found on this topic, so this is unlikely to be the last you hear on it. I’ve also found a few books to work through, so I’ll have more things to share before long.