Managing up, better: mindset
A mindset shift to start improving your reporting relationships
When you think about managing up, keep this in mind:
Your boss wants you to make their life easier.
However stressed you are, practice empathy and ask: what are they worried about?
The more consistently your boss experiences that you make their life better, and that you proactively understand and address their concerns, the happier you’ll both be.
What if making your boss' life easier makes your life worse?
This makes me think of the book Extreme Ownership. The author preaches this concept quite often. I feel like this is also a fundamental thought in the back of the mind of just about any hiring manager... yes "can they do the job" is front and center, but also "are they going to make my life difficult" (which one can do even while getting the "job" done) is probably floating around back there somewhere too. It was for me.