Someone recently asked me on LinkedIn if I would write a letter about “how to manage up”. I’ve been pondering what to write about it all week. One way to approach this topic is to think about the politics: how to figure out what your manager wants, and to tell them what they want to hear. This is a reasonable strategy for corporate survival and promotion, I suppose, but it doesn’t really get you very far in terms of trust and building effective teams. And good managers are very good at sussing out when someone is doing this - even though it might seem like it helps you advance in your career, it can label you as someone who doesn’t have their own opinions or add much value beyond sycophancy. Good managers want to know what you think, not what they think.
typo in title :) Thank you so much for writing these!