Season 2 Episode 2: Managing Up: What I’ve Learned (and What Still Trips Me Up)

Managing up sounds easy in theory—but what does it actually look like in practice? In this episode, I reflect on my own experiences navigating leadership boundaries, ethical tensions, and communication missteps, and share why clarifying expectations, anticipating needs, and advocating with integrity are essential to building stronger working relationships.

Transcript

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Welcome to Learning To Manage. I'm Aruna Seegolam, an administrative and operations professional with over a decade of experience committed to continuously improving my leadership and management skills. This podcast explores leadership, growth, and the practical realities of managing people and organizations. Thanks for being here. Let's get into today's conversation. This season, we're focusing on what leadership looks like in practice. So we're talking real decisions, tensions, and moments that shape how we lead. So this episode is on Managing Up. I haven't seen much about managing up in the literature, and I think it's because organizations spend so much time trying to figure out how managers are supposed to be more effective with their employees rather than how employees need to talk to their managers. Because I think that there's this idea that it doesn't matter what an employee wants, it's only the one in charge that has to work on everything and control everything and guide everything and motivate everything. But it truly doesn't work like that in the workplace where no matter what you're doing, someone has some kind of work relationship with someone else. So we all need to understand how to communicate with one another. I've seen things where the relationship between a manager and an employee seems like a political or a manipulative relationship, but it doesn't have to be that way. And I think that that's where we're lacking in some of the leadership education, and it's just on how do we communicate with people. So in my last episode, I talked about the qualities that a servant leader has, and those qualities are important for everybody. I think it's important for everyone to be accountable, and everyone needs to be empathetic and everyone needs to listen. So these qualities can be transferred over to employees, not just managers. So how many of us just kind of go into work trying to figure out what our manager wants, give that to them, and then move on with our day? And I generally do this, right? So I would take my responsibilities, complete my responsibilities, support my team, and then make sure that my manager has whatever they need, but it's not always that simple because part of being a manager is thinking outside of that. So again, I talked in the last episode about servant leadership qualities, and part of that is being a good servant leader. Where I've struggled a lot is managing up when I am trying to exhibit servant leadership qualities but no one else is, and I'm not saying these are not effective managers. I'm not saying these are not good managers, but in trying to be empathetic, in trying to be transparent in trying to be accountable, I share things sometimes that makes management upset or I expect to know something and I don't realize my role has boundaries and limitations, and so I'm gonna share two stories and it's gonna seem like how can I be trusted with trying to talk about managing up when clearly I'm still getting it wrong, but that's exactly my point, is that managing up is way more difficult to kind of understand, but at the same time, as managers, we have to protect our people and we have to do the work. Servant leadership talks explicitly about stewardship, so being a servant leader isn't just about being this extreme support to your employees, it is also making sure that you get the work done. And in both of these stories I share trying to push the servant leadership thing, but it doesn't always work, and this is why I truly feel that a servant leadership culture is important so that people or management understands where these empathetic thoughts are coming from, where this transparency is coming from. Because if others are transparent with me, I understand what to do. And I have shared this before, that there are boundaries that are kept when there's transparency. I have never worked with someone who has exhibited servant leadership or when I have tried to employ these kind of behaviors and seeing someone take advantage of it. So explaining the boundaries isn't a bad thing, and I talk a lot about role clarity in my paper. And I, it's just, I cannot emphasize it enough. People need to understand what they need to be doing so that they can better support. In my roles, I've been told to protect the organization, you know, whatever that means, by ensuring that employees don't get information that's relevant to them. So I got reprimanded a few years ago because I didn't tell a lie on behalf of HR. They wanted me to give some broad answer, like, we're working on it. Um, no, we're not. I later learned that management already made a decision. And their decision was to wait it out. And when I mean, wait it out, it meant to wait it out until they can lay off that entire team. My team, on my last day. Folks, when I say I'm traumatized from some bad management decisions, I, I truly mean it. But anyway, that's not how we manage up. We don't manage up by just doing what our managers want, because in the, the situation I just shared, I didn't understand that management was kind of like icing me out of decisions, and I don't say that to be negative. They didn't feel that it was necessary for me to know in that time and point. But where I failed is that I didn't pay attention. And had I paid attention, I would've kept in the background. Because that's what my manager needed at that time. That is what the organization needed at that time. And anyone that's worked with me knows how much that's a struggle for me, asking me to not take the initiative is difficult, which is probably not probably, which is the reason why I didn't see it. Um, you know, I'm, I'm constantly trying to improve relationships and make processes better and things like that, but it is not always needed at every single moment. Sometimes we just have to be an employee and do what's needed. So in managing up, I've determined there are kind of like four little areas. One, clarify expectations. One of the first goals I have when I first start a job or I have a new manager, is to understand what my manager wants from me. What makes them happy? What's my boundaries? The second is anticipating needs. This is so, so, so, so important. One successful thing for me is that I pick up on the habits of my manager. So I'll give you an example. One of my managers always happened to need a pad and paper, and when you're in the office, this is fine, can easily grab one. But one time we were at a restaurant having a lunch meeting and the manager was just about to turn to me and say that they wish they had a pen and paper, and poof, comes one out of my purse. The next one is communicating proactively. So I've sometimes shared information with managers even when they haven't asked for it. So especially if I haven't been able to talk to my manager in the past week or two weeks, I'll send them like a rundown. Hey, this is what I've been working on. This is the status. You didn't ask for this, you don't need to do anything. I make it very clear, like on this subject line, it'll say, no action needed, just an update. I just kind of let them know that things are getting taken care of. And the last one is advocating for your team or clients while respecting leadership boundaries. Always advocate for your team. I once spoke up on a meeting on behalf of my team, and I was told not to do that again. Um, but don't be scared. Again, as long as you're respecting boundaries, you can speak up for your team. And I struggle with this. Another time I spoke up on behalf of our clients and that we served and I was ignored. And so, again, I, I really struggle with this and I have left jobs when people have been disrespected. And I know you're probably saying this makes no sense.'Cause if you're trying to respect and protect people, why do, would you leave? But I think we all need to set ethical boundaries and especially when we see that our leadership isn't going to respect ethical boundaries, then we kind of, you know, do need to make a step for ourselves. And I've been grateful to be in a position in my life where I can walk away. But when you're trying to respect and protect people, I do think we need to set ethical boundaries. So in doing all of these things, we're communicating in ways that our leaders receive well. So we're phrasing and framing issues in terms of impact and solutions. You know, and learn from me and know when to push and know when to pause. Just as my managerial role has boundaries, our managers have boundaries too. Management in general, leadership in general, there are boundaries everywhere. So as long as we're not going into any unethical territories and we respect the roles and the rules we should be good. Someone asked me the other day, well, you know, we're talking about managing up. How do you address issues when you have a non-responsive manager? Well, I explained to them what will go wrong if they don't take action and they usually don't listen, at least not the first time. And when things go wrong, I fix it. But managers are more likely to not let it happen again, and I'm listened to a little bit better. So sometimes we unfortunately have to let ourselves get burnt so that we can explain how the fire works. Managing up shouldn't feel uncomfortable. It's just the way that we coordinate and communicate with our leaders. Sure, we can feel vulnerable, especially when we're trying to speak up for ourselves but it's not a confrontational thing. Too often we're taught, well, the customer's always right, and the early bird gets the worm, but guys we're in 2026. We don't need to view boundaries as a negative. It's our way of saying, this is all I can handle and I'd love to show you what I can achieve within these boundaries. Managing up is about understanding what managers need and working to give them what they ask for while knowing how to ask what we need. It's just like any listening and communication skills we need to learn. So let's understand what others want and share in a way that's easy for them to understand what we want. Thanks for listening to learning to Manage. If you have leadership experiences, challenges, or perspectives you'd like to share, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to reach out through the podcast page or on social. I appreciate you being here. Until next time.