{"id":1042,"date":"2025-10-29T13:29:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/?p=1042"},"modified":"2025-10-29T13:59:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:59:02","slug":"managing-up-is-essential-for-career-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/?p=1042","title":{"rendered":"Managing Up is Essential for Career Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"688\" class=\"wp-image-1044 alignleft\" style=\"width: 150px;\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/women-at-work.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/women-at-work.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/women-at-work-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/women-at-work-768x516.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>What does it mean to navigate your boss?&nbsp; Perhaps you are familiar with the term: managing up?&nbsp; The Harvard Business Review defines managing up as \u201cbeing the most effective employee you can be, creating value for your boss and your company.\u201d&nbsp; If you do not have a good relationship with your manager, chances are life isn\u2019t going to be easy, and your career could stall or even derail.&nbsp; This soft skill, of managing up, can greatly enhance your career.&nbsp; This isn\u2019t about being a \u201csuck up\u201d!&nbsp; If you don\u2019t understand what makes your boss tick, you can\u2019t possibly know how to navigate the waters with her\/him.&nbsp; Even if you don\u2019t particularly like your manager, you can manage up.&nbsp; The quote from the late Zig Zigler is appropriate here, \u201cYou can get everything in life you want, if you will just help enough people get what they want.\u201d&nbsp; Let\u2019s say you don\u2019t like your boss, and you buck him at every turn, maybe you have even been known to sabotage him.&nbsp; You may feel a bit of internal satisfaction, but you are sabotaging your own career.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps this sounds like a daunting task. It doesn\u2019t have to be, if you take it step by step. Here are some keys to managing your manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Determine the goals and priorities of your boss.<\/strong>\u00a0 Every boss is different, even in the same workplace.\u00a0 Perhaps your boss is an extrovert, and the priority is having you out of the office, networking to expand the reputation of the company.\u00a0 Your focus has instead been on making sure every report is perfect, with no errors.\u00a0 It is essential that you are focused on the work the boss cares about the most.\u00a0 In addition to where to focus, you must know what your boss is shooting for.\u00a0 Where does she see herself in five years?\u00a0 Perhaps you work in the marketing department, where she desires to be the VP of Marketing when the current VP retires.  Every opportunity you have to amplify her work with senior management is smart.  With a great relationship, your boss may take you along with her as she moves upward.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Determine the personality of your boss.<\/strong>  Most workplaces do some find of personality assessment.\u00a0 Perhaps your company uses DiSC Profile or other personality assessments.\u00a0 Get your hands on that information!\u00a0 That will tell you whether your boss tends to be dominant\/action oriented, knowledge\/logic oriented, nurturing\/relationship oriented, or social\/relationship oriented.\u00a0 Action oriented bosses use words like: winning, excitement, opportunity; knowledge\/logic-oriented use: research, competence, accuracy; nurturing\/relationship-oriented use: authenticity, harmony, and ethics; social-oriented use: fun, image, significant.\u00a0 Every personality assessment has different language.\u00a0 Once you know the personality style of your manager, you can speak to them in their language.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Determine the communication style of your boss.<\/strong>\u00a0 Is your boss very sociable and loves and really wants warm workplace relationships?\u00a0 You would be smart to start your exchanges by asking about his weekend.\u00a0 Does his daughter play basketball?\u00a0 Ask about how her game went against her school\u2019s archrival.  If you jump in first with business, without some social interaction, you may be damaging your relationship.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s not your style, do it anyway.\u00a0 Perhaps your boss is just the opposite, she is all business, all the time.\u00a0 If you expect ten minutes of conversation about the weekend, you are not being smart!\u00a0 Jump in ASAP, to the business at hand.\u00a0 Every email should get to the point quickly, use bullets.  Give a quick overview of what you need to communicate.\u00a0 This is not difficult to discern, just listen and observe your manager for a week.\u00a0 What are your meetings like with her?\u00a0 What does her communication look like?\u00a0 Does she stay in her office all the time or is she out frequently?\u00a0 These interactions will give you the clues you need in communicating with her. \u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Determine what could make life easier for your boss.<\/strong>&nbsp; When you have a different personality than your manager, there are bound to be things you are great at doing that he absolutely hates.&nbsp; Offer to take something off his plate that is not a fit for him.&nbsp; He will thank you for that.&nbsp; Perhaps he is a non-sense numbers kind of guy, but he does think a department newsletter is a smart idea.&nbsp; Offer to write the newsletter with just a bullet list of items he says need to be covered.&nbsp; Perhaps you can solve a problem for your boss.&nbsp; I remember when I was the director of a department and spent frustrating hours on scheduling employees.&nbsp; I not only hated doing it, but I was also not good at it.&nbsp; Luckily, my employee Marty offered to do the scheduling!&nbsp; She did it fast, without errors, and staff complained to her when they didn\u2019t like how they were scheduled.&nbsp; This was brilliant on her part, as I was eternally grateful and I showed my gratitude!&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Have you thought while reading this article that you need to navigate your boss<\/strong>? <strong>Are the specifics challenging in your situation?\u00a0 Need more assistance in taking this journey?\u00a0\u00a0I have tackled managing up with many clients.  Let\u2019s do a complimentary 45-minute consultation to determine if I might be the right person to direct you in navigating your boss.\u00a0 Email <\/strong><a href=\"mailto:Kay@highheeledsuccess.com\"><strong>Kay@highheeledsuccess.com<\/strong><\/a><strong> or call 513-561-4288 to schedule.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What does it mean to navigate your boss?&nbsp; Perhaps you are familiar with the term: managing up?&nbsp; The Harvard Business Review defines managing up as \u201cbeing the most effective employee you can be, creating value for your boss and your company.\u201d&nbsp; If you do not have a good relationship with your manager, chances are life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,26,1,17],"tags":[62,78,99,152,151],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Qkhe-gO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1059,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions\/1059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.highheeledsuccess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}