As leaders, we often and understandably focus on the teams we lead, direct reports we supervise, and manage people “below” us in the organizational chart. But one of the most underrated leadership capacities is our ability to lead those above us.
Most people think of this as managing up, keeping your supervisor informed, anticipating their needs, and helping them succeed. If you’ve not thought about managing up before, I’d recommend it. However, if you’ve been managing up and you want to take that to another level, consider leading up.
The Limits of Managing Up
Managing up is often helpful, but it can easily slip into a transactional or even adversarial tone.
- It creates a utilitarian mindset — “How do I keep my boss happy or out of my way?” instead of “How do I help us succeed for those we lead?”
- It reduces your supervisor to an object or problem to manage, rather than a human who can be a partner to lead with.
- It abdicates your responsibility to bring your own leadership into the relationship.
The Power of Leading Up
Leading up recognizes that leadership is a process, not a position. We cannot passively await the leadership we wish were happening; we have to engage, influence, and lead it.
When you shift from managing up to leading up, you start to see your supervisor differently:
- As a complementary partner with different capacities and responsibilities.
- As a full human with strengths, brilliance, pressures, fears, and blind spots.
- As someone you can influence, support, and align with toward shared outcomes.
What Shifts When You Lead Up
When I ask leaders to reframe from managing up to leading up, they immediately often reflect and become more insightful and effective.
They start saying things like:
- “I recognize the pressure they’re under.”
- “I want to connect with them first and then tackle the issue.”
- “I’m putting myself in their shoes.”
- “I realize they have fears, insecurities, and limits, just like the rest of us.”
- “I get empathetic, which helps me connect genuinely and move beyond both of our facades.”
Leading up doesn’t mean appeasing or manipulating. It means taking responsibility for how you show up in the relationship with empathy, clarity, and courage.
Why It Matters
Effectively leading up can strengthen the relationship, increase both your effectiveness and your collective effectiveness. Rather than wish you had a better relationship with your supervisor, how are you taking responsibility for your role in developing that relationship? And in higher education, where positional power often conflates with identity-based power, leading with humanity can be an effective and critical leadership capacity.
Questions for Reflection
Think about someone “above” you who is challenging to work with.
What shifts if you see your engagement not as managing up, but leading up?
What could leading up look like in your context, right now, this week?
