Managing Up (Irina’s Version): How to Meet The Unspoken Needs of Your Manager
And build a symbiotic partnership that benefits both of you
Reading time: 8 minutes
The first time I heard about “managing up” was years into being a senior engineer. Back in those days—and yeah, I know how it sounds—we were nowhere nearly as savvy as ICs talking about career growth or helping our manager.
These days, though, “managing up” is a widely known term, and getting good at it is a major move for growing your career.
What “managing up” essentially means is helping your manager help you, and building a symbiotic partnership that benefits both of you.
In today’s article, we focus on how to manage up. We cover:
The 🔑 question in managing up
Learning about your manager’s goals and working style
The unspoken needs of your manager
The advice presented in this article applies to both ICs and managers.
Let’s dive in!
This article is part of a series talking about the optimal career trifecta: getting managed, self-management, and managing up. The series includes:
The 🔑 question in managing up
The relationship between you and your manager is a 2-way street, where both parties have feelings, needs, and aspirations.
Just like your manager is trying to tailor their management approach to fit you and your working style, you should also be figuring out how to best support and communicate with your manager to make both your jobs easier and more effective.
Managing up doesn’t look the same for everybody, but there is one fundamental question that sits at the center of it:
What are my manager's needs, goals, and working style,
and how can I support them?
Learning about your manager’s goals and working style
Uncovering your manager's goals involves being both observant and proactive—paying attention to their priorities:
In meetings, please focus on the topics and projects your manager emphasizes, the challenges they highlight, and the outcomes they seem most concerned with
In 1-1, you can ask about their goals and challenges, for example:
✅ Could you share with me what are your main objectives for our team and how I can align my work to support these objectives?
✅ I’m curious about the bigger picture challenges you’re facing, especially when it comes to scaling your own role and responsibilities. Is there anything specific you’re working through that I might be able to help with or learn from?
To figure out your manager’s preferred communication style, you’ll want to know: do they prefer push communication, pull communication, or a combination of the two depending on the project?
Push communication: involves proactively providing your manager with updates, insights, and information without waiting for them to ask
Pull communication: requires your manager to request information from you.
The push method might seem preferable, but it’s not always the case. The pull method has its advantages for certain types of updates for busy managers who prefer to solicit updates and data as needed, rather than sifting through unsolicited information.
I would err on the side of over-communicating unless explicitly asked otherwise not to.
Examples:
✅ How do you prefer to receive updates and feedback from me—through email, ad hoc, or wait until our one-on-one?
✅ For project [project], would you prefer me update you periodically or for you to ask for updates and data as needed?
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The unspoken needs of your manager
At a high level, there are 6 categories of needs that can be bucketed as follows:
Let’s dive into each of them.
1. Share things about yourself
Part of managing up successfully is sharing essential things about yourself such as your short-term and long-term goals, areas you want to grow in, your POVs (points of view), and —yes you hear me right— your struggles.
Why? Because your manager can’t read your mind. By proactively sharing this information, you enable them to guide you more effectively and support you.
This transparency doesn’t just make your career progress smoother but also helps you build a relationship where both you and your manager feel invested in each other's success, which is key in managing up successfully.
Examples:
✅ I’m on the lookout for chances to lead a bit more. I feel ready to step up and guide some of our projects forward.
✅ I’m eyeing some goals for my career, especially around [specific skill or role]. Keen to chat about how I might move in that direction.
✅ I’ve been really getting into [specific area or skill] lately and am finding it super interesting. I’m looking for ways to weave this into our projects.
2. Funnel information upstream
Managing up is all about funneling the right information up to your manager.
This is essential because it helps your manager set realistic expectations, make informed decisions, and stay up to date with how projects are going and what problems we're facing.
So, what information is relevant to your manager?
Progress updates: How your projects are progressing
Warnings: Early flagging about potential delays, concerns, or imminent crisis
FYIs: Various information they might not be aware of such as updates or decisions
What can be included in FYIs? Here are some principles I use to determine what to share:
Does this information significantly affect our team or team’s goals, timelines, or resources?
Is this a lesson learned that could benefit the wider team or organization?
Will my manager be upset or disappointed if they find out about this later / or from someone else and not from me?
⚠️ Caution ⚠️: Don’t share with your manager information that is not yours to share (such as things that other people shared with you in confidence). Even if your manager could use that information, it is a breach of trust and will hurt you and your personal brand in the long run.
Examples:
✅ I hit a snag with [specific task/project] that might slow us down. I’m on it, though, and will keep you in the loop as I figure things out.
✅ After our team talk, I’ve grabbed a few of us to dive deeper into that issue we mentioned. We’ll bring some thoughts and fixes to you by [date].
✅ Got some great feedback from [client/stakeholder] about our work. They really liked [specific aspect], so maybe we should think about doing more of that.
3. Give your manager feedback
Your concerns and feedback matter. Make sure your manager knows about it.
Bottom-up constructive feedback and insights are invaluable for improving strategies and processes—especially if you’re directly interacting with customers or deeply involved in the day-to-day technical challenges.
More so, your manager also needs positive feedback and praise. Management is a challenging and lonely role. Telling your manager they’re doing great can truly make their day sometimes.
Bonus points if you praise them in public—as long as it’s authentic and in integrity, it never hurts to make your manager look good.
Examples:
✅ The team really appreciates how open you are to hearing new ideas. It makes a big difference in how we tackle challenges.
✅ I feel like our meetings could be a bit more focused. Maybe setting a strict agenda could help us stay on track and finish up quicker?
4. Bring solutions and take initiatives
Flagging issues is a helpful habit, but what could truly make your manager's day is if you also bring solutions to the table, or at the very least, show initiative in tackling the issues head-on.
Being solutions-oriented also includes being ready to help in different situations, and willing to take on additional responsibilities as needed.
Examples:
✅ There's been some confusion around the new process we rolled out. I'm thinking of creating a quick reference guide for everyone. It might clear things up and speed up adoption.
✅ I noticed our project timelines often get extended due to late-stage changes. Maybe we can implement a more rigorous review process at earlier stages? I'm happy to lead a pilot of this idea.
✅ I've been exploring ways to improve our onboarding process for new hires. I've gathered some best practices and would like to discuss how we can integrate them.
5. Provide support - yes, your manager needs support too!
The more you can support your manager, the easier it’ll be for them to support you.
There are 2 ways to figure out how to support your manager: directly or indirectly.
The direct approach is to ask. Here are some examples:
✅ How can I support you?
✅ What can I take off your plate?
✅ What challenges are you currently facing, and how can I contribute in a way that would be most helpful to you?
The indirect approach is to guess. These are some questions that might help you find answers:
In what ways can you take initiative in your role that would alleviate pressure or challenges your manager faces?
Knowing their goals, can you come up with ideas to help them?
Can you offer yourself as a sounding board and advisor?
✅ I remember last time you needed [need] so I made sure to [action].
✅ I took the liberty to [action], so that it helps with [goal].
⚠️ Caution ⚠️: Like unsolicited advice, unsolicited help can backfire if not handled with delicacy. Your manager might see it as insulting, or undermining. The best strategy is to check with them first, like this:
✅ Would it be helpful if I took care of [subject] while you focus on [subject]?
✅ If you’re open to it, I can attend [meeting name] on your behalf and summarize the conclusions for you.
6. Save them time
The schedule of a manager is chaotic, often jam-packed with back-to-back meetings. Finding ways to save them time is critical.
Here is how you can do it:
Be concise and to the point in your communications. Prepare summaries of your updates or questions in advance. Reduce the need for back and forth.
Schedule meetings only when necessary, and always have a clear agenda.
Anticipate their needs and provide solutions or information before they have to ask.
Streamline your communication (slack messages, emails) by highlighting key points and decisions needed — this reduces the time they spend on reading.
Examples:
✅ Instead of sending daily updates, what if I compile a weekly digest of my progress? You'll have all the insights in one place, making it easier to track without disrupting your workflow.
✅ I'll start aggregating our sprint retrospectives and action items into a concise summary, so you can quickly see team insights and decisions without attending every meeting.
✅ I'll create and maintain a comprehensive FAQ with common questions. It should reduce the number of basic questions you get, freeing up more of your time.
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Your Caring Techie
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Practical advices, thanks for sharing
Thanks for the great article. It feels so relevant to my current situation.