Kelly speaks to Melody Wilding, an executive and leadership coach, licensed social worker and a former researcher at Rutgers University. She is a professor of Human Behavior at Hunter College and is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Business Insider. She has a new book, “Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge.”  

Of all the people I’ve worked with over the years, Tina Fey was probably the best at managing up. It’s noticeable because it’s pretty rare, isn’t it? 

“It is because this is a skill we’re never taught, right? You’re just dropped into your career and you are mostly valued because of your technical skills. Yet there is often this shift that comes when you reach usually mid-career, mid-level where your people skills and your ability to navigate those human dynamics, the psychology, even the politics that are happening around you, that actually becomes more important.” 

I also appreciate when you talk about focusing on your strengths. 

“The people I see who are most successful, they focus on finding a triple win. They focus on things that are going to be useful and productive and fulfilling for them, but they also look at what does my boss care about and what’s going to be a value for the organization. So, managing up is really about you getting what you need at work. And that does require that we be forthcoming about what are my strengths. This is how you can get the best performance out of me, where I think I can bring the most value and most managers enjoy that because you’re making their life easier. You’re basically saying, these are the types of things – please put me in, coach, in these certain areas. And that’s a gift to a lot of managers.” 

And our managing up mindset is really about recognizing that we all win when we are all aligned. 

“This is where managing up is really a two-way street, right? We need to assert our own preferences and needs, but we also need to understand and build trust with our managers so that they open up about certain things. And a really simple shift you can make in your one-on-ones is not focusing on status updates. That’s a huge mistake I see people make is they just make it a laundry list rundown of, okay, I contacted the client about this, this other thing is now in progress, and it’s just an update that frankly could have been done asynchronously. Your one-on-ones should be starting with milestones, key wins, outcomes, things that are more results oriented so that your manager sees what you’re accomplishing, how you’re giving them visibility into your thought process or your problem-solving methods. But you’re also essentially giving them a cheat sheet that they can run up their own chain of command to say, Kelly was really instrumental in making sure we could get this key higher over the finish line. And that is so valuable. That’s what helps you become known through your manager. So that’s a really easy switch that a lot of people can make. “