By Rana Abu Nemeh
March 30, 2020
What does it mean?
Managing up as a term means keeping the channels of communication open and bi-directional between a leader and his/her team. It involves thinking and acting strategically and proactively, taking responsibility for mistakes and performance gaps, and making it easier for the leader to take credit for their team’s excellent work.
Why is it important?
It is proved that the performance of tasks and work is significantly better when information goes both ways. From manager to employee and from employee to manager, enabling feedback to travel in a bi-directional way improves the decision making for leaders, enhances employee’s performance, and improves managers’ ability to help employees perform better.
How does it work?
- Communicate your priorities and actively ask for feedback
- Think proactively and brainstorm ideas for potential needs/challenges/ opportunities.
- Understand each person’s preferred communication style and channel
- Address problems or new ideas at the right time
- Establish a trusting relationship with all team members that encourages them to come forth and ask for help when they need to.
- Do NOT treat people the way YOU like to be treated, treat people the way THEY like to be treated.
- Embrace the differences among individuals; delegate the right task to the right person at the right time.
- Encourage constant feedback.
- Show compassion and kindness with your employees to encourage engagement
- Recognize employee’s contributions and provide opportunities for involvement.
- Encourage employees to create a feedforward plan post each feedback session, empower them enough to take ownership of creating and executing that plan
