How to Get What You Want
Your career isn’t built by waiting for someone to notice your value. It’s built by learning how to advocate for yourself with confidence.
You’ve been told your work will speak for itself. Yet despite doing everything asked of you—and more—you’re still feeling overlooked and uncertain about your next step. Leadership isn’t just about managing a team; it’s navigating the complexities of internal relationships and consistently advocating for your growth.
On Get What You Want, Susie Tomenchok is your silent partner, empowering you with the mindset and tools to negotiate your career—and life—with intention.
Unlike podcasts that focus on climbing the ladder or hustle culture, this show is for women who want to own their careers authentically. You’ll learn practical strategies for everyday negotiations, from asking for what you deserve to confidently handling tough conversations. Because negotiation isn’t just for raises or promotions—it’s how you navigate every opportunity in your career and beyond.
Susie is a negotiation expert who understands the challenges of being in a male-dominated industry and the struggles women face when advocating for themselves. She’s helped countless professionals unlock their potential and will show you how to do the same.
If you’re ready to stop waiting for your career to happen to you and start creating the opportunities you want, hit follow and join Susie each week to build your confidence, advocate for yourself, and finally Get What You Want.
How to Get What You Want
The art of managing up
Ready to master the subtle art of 'managing up' and effectively navigate everyday negotiations? This episode promises to elevate your professional communication skills. Our conversation begins with the unconventional yet essential topic of 'managing up'. This isn't just about your direct report, but everyone around the organization. We share enlightening insights on establishing trust, adapting to your boss's communication style, and bringing forward solutions instead of problems. It's time to revolutionize how you interact with your boss and organization!
But that's not all. Our discussion takes an intriguing twist as we delve into the essentials of everyday negotiation minus the manipulative art. Ever felt jittery before a negotiation? I've got you covered. Learn how to assertively represent yourself, prepare adequately, understand the other party's needs, and articulate your objectives with crystal clarity. Let's bust those fears and boost your confidence and let's get started!
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🚀 Ready to Get What You Want?
Listening is great, but real change happens when you take action. Join my newsletter for exclusive negotiation strategies, scripts, and real-world case studies you won’t hear on the podcast. Sign up now at www.negotiationlove.com—it takes 10 seconds and will change how you view and negotiate forever.
📖 Continue Your Professional Growth with These Resources:
Get my Book: The Art of Everyday Negotiation without Manipulation:
www.susietomenchok.com/the-art-of-everyday-negotiation
Work With Me: Speaking, corporate training, and executive coaching:
www.susietomenchok.com/services
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Remember, negotiation is more than a skill—it’s a mindset.
💕Susie
www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok
Welcome to the Leaders with Leverage Podcast. I'm your host and negotiation expert, suzy Tomonczuk. It's time to be your own advocate and negotiate for what you really want out of your career, not simply the next role or additional compensation. I want to show you that negotiation happens each and every day so that you opt in and say yes with confidence. Together with other business leaders, you'll learn the essential skills you, as a leader, needs to become that advocate in growing your professional skills, to increase confidence, gain respect and become the future leader you're poised to be, and when you face a high-stakes situation, you're ready, no matter how high those stakes are. So let's do this. Let's lead with leverage. Hi and welcome Business Leaders with Leverage. I'm your host, suzy Tomonczuk. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1:I'm going to talk a little bit about managing up today. It's a topic that I work with many organizations on and I have to say when I start talking about this, some people hadn't taken the time to really think about managing up and what that means. And when I think of managing up, it's not just to your direct report that's what we're going to talk about today but managing up is about managing relationships all around the organization. To me it is managing up, but it's also managing up a little bit to either side. It's managing to your peer group. As leaders, it's our responsibility to have a 360 management when it's not just to our direct reports, it's all over the sphere of your influence. So today I wanted to talk about just a couple best practices for you when you think about managing up to your boss and why it's important. So, as we know, trust is a most critical aspect of a relationship with your boss, with your peers, with the people that work for you. But let's talk about that with your boss Trust. When you build a relationship with trust, you open up the communication, the feedback, the ability to delegate. When you have a trusted relationship with your boss, they feel comfortable handing things off to you, talking to you, opening up a little bit more with the context of what it feels like to be them. And that's so helpful for a couple of reasons. When you have that optic lens to understand what they're going through, beyond what you are doing, you can understand what politics they face in their role. What's important no-transcript We'll make them look good to their boss, to their peers, so that you can, if you can be a positive contributing factor to that. You can help there. You can help them because listen, at the end of the day, our role is to help our organization have better business results, for our peers to do better and, of course, for our boss to be successful, because when they are, that just helps the culture, that helps them feel like the abundance so they can feel comfortable and confident and just helps overall. So let's go to. I'll give you three.
Speaker 1:If you listen to my other podcast, we always do things James and I in threes are quick take podcast, so I'm going to take a page from that podcast today. So the one thing is to think about your boss's goals and if you don't know what their goals are I mean I'm not just saying the company goals what are their professional goals how can you get to know that so that you understand what maybe they're working on when you have that build, when you've built that trusty relationship? Those are things that you can tease out and maybe it's you know when you get to go out to dinner or you're walking down the hall, like when you're in a casual conversation. Maybe those are the best times to tease out some of that. That information Always be kind of fishing for more information about your boss, what their goals are and what's their.
Speaker 1:Pay attention to their communication style. It might not be what they say. Listen and watch how they communicate to their boss. Watch and see how they communicate to other people around you. Notice what they like to use. Do they email all the time? Do they pick up the phone when they have a quick question? Do they do they? I am that is normally because that's the channel they most use and they're familiar or comfortable with it's also great to adapt to the way they communicate. We always think about the way we think in our minds. Of course, we're the only people that live in our head, but when we think about it from their perspective, of what their style is, how they like the cadence of information, we don't even ask them. But when we tailor it to what they already do or what they're used to, then it's more familiar to them, so it's easier for them to understand it. So me feel a little bit foreign to us, but it won't to them. So look at their communication style, understand their goals and have that frame when you're communicating with them. That's one Now this isn't oldy, but such a goody around providing solutions, not just problems.
Speaker 1:Oi, this can be really hard to do, especially in the heat of the moment where you're just at your wits end with something and you just want to go and just throw it on their desk to figure out. And it's a great best practice, even if you don't have a great solution at the time, to at least spend a few minutes brainstorming what the potential possible solutions are and even be able to frame it. Listen, I'm going to bring you a problem and I don't have a lot of solutions, but I've been thinking about it and here's some possibilities. I'd like to take time to tell you what's going on, solicit some feedback from you, tell you what I'm thinking and see what I need to do next to come up with a solution. So that's one way to frame it in case you can't bring a solution to a problem or you suddenly realize you just brought a problem without a solution. Think about how do you reframe it in a way that you're not trying to just lob this big hairy thing on their desk to figure out for you and you didn't have any thought around how you were going to handle it. Hey there, love this podcast. I'm taking 10 seconds out of this episode to ask you to leave an honest review. More reviews on the show help us to reach more professionals who are ready to lead with leverage. Now let's continue the conversation.
Speaker 1:This is an important thing for leaders to take the time to consider, brainstorm. Make it a best practice so that you're always thinking about what are the solutions, moving back forward in that way. Sometimes, when we're in the midst of a problem, we're triggered by emotions, so you may need a little bit of time. Your tendency might be to pick up the phone and sound off the alarms about what's going on, but if you can even take a few minutes and brainstorm some solutions, you'll have a more level head when you walk into your boss's office or call the boss. It's such a different I can't assume that anymore. So that's number two. The third thing is to always understand where you stand from your boss.
Speaker 1:Ask for feedback, specific feedback, feedback that is proactive. Say I really want to work on this. Can you help me with that? You told me that this was what I needed to work on. Can you watch for that in this meeting? Ask them how did you think that went? But the more you can tell them what you want to make sure that they're watching for that will give you better, really comprehensive feedback. Whenever you can do that. Or if they give you feedback, say well, I'm gonna really work on that and I'm going to come back to you and ask you about it. And when you get feedback from them, you must act on it. You must really be thoughtful about how to integrate it and illustrate to them that you're doing it. You may not overtly say hey, I wanted to just call you and let you know that you told me that I needed to do X and I'm doing it and this is the evidence of that. You really need to think about how do you show them, because what happens with feedback is that even if it's our boss, if we don't act on it and they continue to give us great feedback, they get tired of giving it to you if you don't act on it. It does happen, it's human nature. So when you show them that you value their feedback, what they're giving to you, that investment in you, it allows them to feel comfortable giving it to you more often when necessary, not unnecessary, and it shows them that you value that. That builds that trust in that relationship as well.
Speaker 1:So the three things that I said about managing up there's so many more, but these are three ones if you're not actively managing up to start with now. So the first one is understanding your boss's goals and communication style and how can you adapt to that. Being aware of what are those channels, what is the structure, what is the outline, how can you do it better? Even if it's not your style, you better kind of make some shifts to make it better for your boss and talk to them about that. The second one was providing solutions, not just problems. Even thinking about that frame of how do you frame it to let them know that you didn't just come and give them this problem, but you have considered some things and you want to help them. You want them to help you think through what the next steps are if you don't have a lot of solutions available in that moment. And then the third is when you get feedback, act on it and solicit some more feedback. Don't wait for the annual review or, when they're coming to you, ask them for feedback too. That illustrates that you want to get better and show them that you're open to it. The one way to really stop feedback is to be defensive about it or not open to it or not to follow up with it. So those are the three. I'll just say we're going to talk about managing up a few different times, but those are three things to think about now and to start actively do this. I will tell you managing up is the key to really building a strong and meaningful relationship with your boss that will reap benefits to you, and it's great to get in the practice of doing this with your boss. These are great best practices for the people that are around you too.
Speaker 1:That's it for this one. I just want to thank you for being here. I would welcome a DM or give me something that you want me to talk about on this podcast. I appreciate when people reach out to me and say they're listening. It's an honor, it really is, and I'm so happy that you're here. So again, my name is Suzy, suzy, tom and Chuck, and this has been Leaders with Leverage, and thank you for being here. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Leaders with Leverage. If you're ready to continue your professional growth, commit to accelerating your career development and say goodbye to that anxious feeling in your stomach anytime, you need to advocate for yourself, then get my book the Art of Everyday Negotiation Without Manipulation. In this book you'll learn the essential steps to take before entering into any negotiation or conversation, any interaction. In your day to day, you'll discover what the other party really needs and be clear about what you're going after. You'll bust through your fears and boost your confidence and embrace that negotiation truly happens all around us. Head to the link in the show notes for more, and you can even get a bonus if you buy it today.
