A good friend of mine and talented senior leader texted me a story of how he successfully managed up (down, sideways, and out). With his permission, he allowed me to re-share his tale...
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"Saw one of your LinkedIn articles and thought it was worth sharing this...
I'm working more directly with a [another senior leader] from a different part of the org. Some of our interactions have been pretty confrontational to the point where at the end of last year he sent messages to my boss (who was on PTO) asking for a meeting to discuss my behavior.
My boss forwarded it to me and said - I trust you but we should talk about this.
I ended up stewing on it for a bit and then I just asked the [senior leader] if we could talk directly. Ended up being a good conversation - I owned some things that I could have done better, clarified some things that he'd taken out of context.
I'm now taking the approach of trying to listen more, but also reaching out to him after calls for coaching and feedback. It seems to be really helping to short circuit a lot of the misunderstanding.
To the point where I find myself coaching his team from his perspective, rather than getting frustrated at them."
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It's my friend's openness and honesty with himself and others that inspires me.
In addition, he found a way to improve as a leader and support another team (sometimes called "managing without authority") in a way that improves the team and is in alignment with their boss.
My friend took the lead, inspired change, and improved the way things work for himself, peers, and other teams.
And THAT's how me manage up, down, all around.
THAT's leadership.
Thank you, my friend. You know who you are 🙏❤️🙏
manageup.coach/story