Managing up

What is managing up?

Managing up is working effectively with your own manager, board or sponsor so that you both succeed. It starts from the view that you and your boss depend on each other, so making the relationship work is part of your job as much as theirs. John Gabarro and John Kotter made this case in Managing Your Boss, a Harvard Business Review article first published in 1980.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

A CRO in a PE-backed company answers to the CEO and often to an operating partner, and each wants the commercial picture in a different form. Managing up is how the forecast becomes something the boss can plan around, and how bad news reaches them while there is still time to act. Dana Rousmaniere, writing in HBR, argues the effort pays off for you even with an imperfect boss. Learning how your boss prefers to receive information, and adjusting to it, is part of the job.

A new CRO at a facility services platform learns that the CEO wants a short written summary and the operating partner reads the monthly operating report line by line. He gives the CEO the short version and walks the operating partner through pipeline changes before each board meeting. When a quarter comes in light, neither of them hears it for the first time in the boardroom.