Your Manager's Dirty Little Secret: They Want You To Manage Them

Read Time: 3 minutes 33 seconds

Please check out our new feature this week, The MGMT Mailbag. Get my help on your most pressing management challenge.

"Sit down! This is my Super Bowl. I'm the QB. You'll run the play I call, or you can find someone else to do it. You pick."

If only we'd been in a locker room. Or if the metaphor had even made sense.

Instead, we were in a crowded office. And my Super Bowl, in this case, was performance reviews. Better yet, I had just shouted my boss into his seat. 

If you know me, this is not a natural posture for me. I grew up in a home where the volume on words was turned to 11 and intended to inflict pain. As a result, I pride myself on staying even. Perhaps even when the moment demands a little something more.

So I summoned a little extra that day because I knew that one moment of exerting my command of this situation would prevent months - yes, months - of painful second-guessing.

My manager at the time had high standards. He poked and prodded mainly to see if you had already poked and prodded yourself. And given the stakes - people's career trajectory and compensation on one side, budgets, and company profitability on the other - our approach needed to be airtight.

And it was.

I was confident because this was the 16th time I had run this process.

So, no. We didn't need a new framework. We didn't need to squint at the numbers again. We didn't need one more double-check.

And what it took to manage my manager at that moment was conviction.

It was strategy and, quite frankly, a healthy dose of exasperation.

But it worked.

And it opened new levels of insight into how to manage my manager.

While there is no shortage of tips and tactics (I included some of the best below), here are the core principles I see most high performers use.

Their Goals = Your Goals

You can only win a game if you know how to score. And winning, in this case, is helping your manager succeed. So you need to know their goals and what they're being held accountable to.

And here's a hint: If they won't get fired for repeatedly missing it, that's not the real goal. "I need to grow revenue by $100M and develop an innovation committee." I'm guessing you know which one you want to help with.

How do you figure this out? Ask. Seriously, just ask.

"I want to ensure I'm fully aligning my team's impact with your goals. Am I right that your focus for the year is on X, Y, and Z?"

If your manager wants to avoid this conversation, you might want a new manager.

Solutions > Problems

Here's how to handle problems with your manager, from the worst way to the best:

1. Hide them and pretend everything is fine.

2. Put them "on their radar" but downplay the issue.

3. Accurately escalate them and ask for help.

4. Bring a few viable solutions for them to select from.

5. Highlight the solution you recommend with their blessing.

6. Solve the problem, share your reflections, and ask for coaching.

Let’s look at each possibility: