Lead Your Boss

I recently read Lead Your Boss by John Baldoni, The Subtle Art of Managing Up. He was the author of Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders and Lead By Example.

As most of my readers know, I did not really have a boss (unless you count the Board of Directors) for most of my working career. Then for five years I worked for Synnex, although I was CEO of the Canadian entity, I did have a direct reporting relationship to the CEO in the States.

At some point I may again have a boss.

The title itself makes me think, how do you manage up. After I sold my business to Synnex for the first six months I was depressed thinking it was the worst mistake I had ever made, mostly because I hadn't learned how to manage up. A good friend of mine took me aside when I was complaining about not being able to do what needed to be done and said that I needed to treat it like a sale.

That switch in my head, that reframing caused me to love the five years that I worked at Synnex. They were challenging but I viewed my job as simply selling head office to do the right thing and for some reason I don't get depressed when I don't make a sale, I simply go out and figure out what is a better way to make the sale.

From the book: “Leading up requires great courage and determination, writes Michael Useem, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of an eponymously named book that popularized the concept. “We might fear how your superior will respond, we might doubt our right to lead up, but we all carry a responsibility to do what we can when it will make a difference.”

Individuals who lead up are those who demonstrate that they are aware of the bigger picture and are ready, willing, and able to do what needs to be done for the good of the team.”

He suggests in order to do well you need to think like a boss. I guess because I've always been a boss that doesn't take much. His suggestions are to be around, be seen, and be curious.

The obvious is ask what you can do to help.

I found my time at Synnex was made somewhat easier by me doing a weekly report and I turned this into a process I call rollup weekly reports. I would have the people who reported to me do a weekly report, then cut and paste snippets of things I thought should be known by California into a weekly report. Also as my week progressed, if I thought there was something relevant they might not have heard or seen that I would simply put it in a file. When it came time to do my weekly report, I could fairly easily generate it. The weekly report of course always had some of my opinions of what was happening, which was one way for me to subtly sell my points.

Over time, I've modified the weekly report to even include things like having 3 or 4 organizational goals and asking everyone when they do the weekly report to report what they've done on these goals. This is a great way to get a company focused.

Another line which I like to add is what do you need from me. The reason for adding this in, is it makes sure I'm not the stumbling block, although no one can use waiting for something from me as an excuse.

With so many books written about leaders, I'm surprised there aren't more written about how to be a good follower leader (or a good senior person on the team), because there's many more of those positions than there are of the true leaders.

If I ever take another position where I have a boss, I will simply treat it as an additional challenge to the job. And I will study it.