5 Leadership Fails that Erode Your Leadership Integrity: #3 Expecting Other to "Manage up."

"Manage up", i.e. Creating the expectation of accountability, with the illusion of authority.

I recently heard this comment: “I want my team to get better at ‘managing up.’”

This was a new term to me. Managing up. As a leadership consultant, I was immediately turned off. But I was curious. I inquired further.

And to my dismay, (and my expectation), he meant exactly what I was afraid of: “I want my team to anticipate what I want, my moves, and my expectations, and then manage their time accordingly.”

(If you have ever tried this with a spouse, you know exactly how this doesn’t work!)

He may as well have said, “I don’t want to lead.”

To be fair, I did some more research, and discovered that managing up is a legitimate theoretical technique in professional circles. It means, basically, managing your relationship with your boss.

That’s different. But therein lies the problem with managing up. It’s a misappropriate balance of accountability and authority.

Every role comes with accountabilities. Things you must accomplish. Whether tasks, relationship goals, or roles, etc.

And for every accountability, you must also be given the appropriate amount of authority to accomplish the task. If you aren’t given the authority, you have no way to achieve the accountability.

Managing up gives people the illusion of authority for an accountability that they cannot complete.

Stop expecting others’ to “manage up”. It’s not leadership. It’s lazy.

Profound Leaders take action by engaging the relationships with those they lead. They have the important conversations that build rapport. They reflect on their work partnerships to better understand how they develop symbiotic transactions, and proactive mutuality.

I have worked with hundreds of businesses, and hundreds more business units, and every time I come across chaotic working environments and anxious professionals, I ultimately discover unclear leadership as its driving force.

Managing up is a recipe for poor clarity.

Profound Leaders articulate what they want and need; they don’t just expect others to figure it out.

I know firsthand how busy your leadership role is. I know it takes intentional time, effort, and patience to groom new workers into a role, and to maintain existing team members' growth and progress.

Guess what? That's the role of leadership. And doing that leadership work will always give you time back in the long run.

Expecting your team members to figure you out is a recipe for disaster.

Avoid it at all costs.

(BTW - Same goes for your personal relationships 😊)

Don’t. Be. lazy.

Go. Be. Profound.

G