Tips for Successful Upward Management

5 indispensable steps I've learned to manage up. Career growth isn't just a possibility. It's a constant. It's not just about working hard. It's about working smart. Managing up. Managers are busy. They often need help. But are too busy to ask. So ask them. Enter the ✨magic loop ✨ Five reliable steps to growth: 1️⃣ Do your current job well: -Before you ask how you can help be sure you are crushing it in what you do. 2️⃣ Ask how you can help your manager: -Raise your hand or volunteer. -It's not about being a "yes-person". It's about being indispensable. -As a manager, we notice who steps up. 3️⃣ Do what you're asked: -You may not love how they need help, but whatever it is, do it well. -Don't just meet the bar, raise it. 4️⃣ Ask how you can help in alignment with your career goals: -After you show you can do a great job with requests, you're in a great position. -Raise it a notch. If your goal is simple, ask directly. "Is there a way I can help you while working with [goal or skill] so I can improve?" You've been helping them, they will be willing to help you. 5️⃣ Repeat steps 1-4. It's not about making your manager's life easier (though it does). It's about making yourself an asset. And in the process, carving a path for your own advancement. Add a little managing up to the mix: → Support your manager → Be proactive → Be the team's barometer → Empathize Ready to rise? Manage up and move up. P.S. How have you successfully managed up? Would love to hear below👇 ------------------------------------- 🔔 Follow: Mollie Cox ♻ Repost to help others 💾 Save it for future use

Throughout my career placing professionals across organizational levels, I've observed a counterintuitive pattern: the most productive employees often experience slower advancement than their more strategically visible counterparts.   This disconnect occurs because organizations promote based on perceived value rather than task completion volume.   The Visibility Gap: Most daily work remains invisible to decision-makers who determine advancement opportunities. Being exceptionally busy often signals poor prioritization rather than exceptional value.   Strategic Positioning Over Task Execution: Advancement requires demonstrating impact on organizational priorities rather than individual productivity metrics.   Cross-Functional Relationship Building: Promotion decisions often involve input from multiple stakeholders beyond immediate supervisors, making broader organizational visibility crucial.   Solution-Oriented Communication: Contributing meaningfully to strategic discussions and problem-solving initiatives creates more advancement opportunities than silent execution of assigned tasks.   The professionals who advance most rapidly understand that career growth requires intentional visibility management alongside excellent performance.   This doesn't diminish the importance of quality work, but recognizes that career advancement operates on different metrics than productivity optimization.   For those feeling stuck despite strong performance, the solution often lies in shifting focus from task completion to strategic contribution and ensuring that value creation is visible to advancement decision-makers.   What strategies have you found most effective for translating excellent work into career advancement opportunities?   Sign up to my newsletter for more corporate insights and truths here: https://lnkd.in/ei_uQjju   #deepalivyas #eliterecruiter #recruiter #recruitment #jobsearch #corporate #promotion #promotions #careeradvancement #careerstrategist

Want to stop feeling like your boss hates you? Here are some tips for managing up. Most technical folks I know just aren’t good at upward management. And that’s okay - it’s a tough skill to learn and it’s hardly ever taught. In my experience, you have to be actively seeking out the advice to hear it. Which sucks, but that’s life. So here are my tips to manage upward more effectively: 1. Stop focusing on your problems I can hear you now - “Carly, if my boss doesn’t know about my problems, how can they help me?” As someone who loves to vent, I get it. But chances are that your boss hears about people’s problems all day long (and while that’s certainly part of their job, we’re discussing life hacks to endear them to you). So instead of venting, become “solutions oriented.” What does that mean? Quickly highlight problems while offering solutions. You don’t have to offer the perfect solution (and certainly your boss might want to do something totally different than what you offer) but making the effort to seem solutions oriented will make a world of difference. 2. Stop wasting their time In line with the above, when you bring forth your solutions offer them as decision points and keep it brief. In practice this looks like switching from a long, drawn out description of the problem terminating with “I think we should do X” to “Our options are to do X, Y or Z to fix Problem A. What do you think?” 3. Give regular updates Once you align on a solution to a problem, provide regular quick updates on the status of your solution. The cadence of this might be multiple times per day if urgency is required, or it might look like a once per week email (I prefer Mondays). Remember to include work completed, work in progress, and an estimation of work remaining. If timelines slip (shit happens) give them a heads up! You can’t always control what happens around you, but you can control how you communicate about it. If you have a good manager, making these simple changes should help. If you don’t, then a LinkedIn post from a stranger was never going to do much to begin with 😆 What are your tips for managing up? 👇