Hoping to re-boot your manager's personality? Try these tips instead
Written by Dan Parry • 9 June, 2026
Interpersonal Communication Skills Article
Managing up can feel like holding a tiger by the tail. Reduce angry snarls by building trust and mutual understanding through positive communication. Keep things purring along by developing your side of the relationship. Here’s how to get started.
Managing up is about delivering what your manager needs in a way that’s manageable for you. At its heart, it’s about proactive communication: keeping your manager updated about progress, issues, and solutions to problems. Asking for clarity when expectations are unclear helps to reduce misunderstandings and supports decision-making.
The core principles of managing up start with thinking about outcomes. When pressures are pulling you in different directions, focus less on personalities and more on how you can create a productive rhythm of working together. Trying to change your manager’s personality is rarely a winning strategy. It’s usually more effective to focus on habits, expectations, and ways of working.
Workplace relationships are buffeted by budgets, deadlines, and change. By understanding your manager’s priorities, communication preferences, and challenges, it’s easier to keep things in context so that difficult moments can be handled carefully.
Successful ideas are timely, relevant, and actionable. Ideas that are carefully framed are more likely to get a positive response. Present your suggestion not simply as an interesting possibility but as a practical solution to challenges or opportunities. For these reasons, new ideas require preparation, clarity, and an understanding of organisational priorities.
Take time to understand the context in which your manager is operating. Keep your idea relevant and meaningful to decision-makers. Think about their strategic objectives, operational pressures, limits on resources, and competing priorities.
When you’re presenting your idea, begin by clearly explaining the problem. Managers are more likely to engage when they can quickly see why an idea matters.
Explain your solution, the potential benefits, and how success could be measured. Where possible, include evidence, examples, data, or lessons learned from elsewhere – whether in the organisation or the wider industry.
Address potential risks, costs, and difficulties upfront. Managers will feel more confident about a proposal when it includes thoughts about both the advantages and the practical implications. Don’t forget to anticipate questions and concerns.
Finally, be open to feedback and discussion. Most good ideas improve through a process of refinement. Rather than focusing solely on immediate sign-off, aim to start a constructive conversation that explores how the idea might support objectives and outcomes.
Improve your relationship with your manager by focusing on clarity, reliability, and mutual understanding. Most difficulties in manager–employee relationships don’t come from personality clashes but involve mismatched expectations, poor communication, or uncertainty about priorities.
Start by understanding what your manager is accountable for. When you see their deadlines, pressure points, and what success actually looks like for them, you can adjust your own work priorities to support them.
By recognising the realities your manager faces, you show that you see them as they see themselves: human, busy, and trying to balance competing demands.
Consistency is also key. Delivering work on time, meeting commitments, and providing updates without being chased all help to build trust. If a deadline is at risk, saying so early on demonstrates honesty. A late surprise can damage trust, even when your intentions were good. Trust builds when your manager doesn’t have to second-guess you.
Regular, structured check-ins can help to prevent misunderstandings. These moments give you a chance to report progress, clarify priorities, and make sure your work is in line with expectations.
Tone matters too, along with emotional intelligence. Aim for constructive communication, with a focus on solutions – especially when raising problems. Ideally, issues are best presented alongside potential options, rather than leaving the burden of responsibility entirely with your manager.
Ultimately, managers like to feel their objectives are understood and supported, rather than treated as background noise. Think about big-picture goals, not just your everyday tasks. A manager is more likely to connect with someone who supports the direction of travel rather than just small steps along the way.
Managing up is often less about influence than information. The more clearly expectations, priorities, and progress are communicated, the easier it becomes to work together effectively.
Clear and consistent understanding about priorities, deadlines, and definitions of ‘done’ all contribute to a feeling of being on the same page. With this level of connection, it’s easier for an employee to suggest alternative actions or present a competing viewpoint. A step-by-step guide to managing up would include:
A steady pattern of reduced responsibility, fewer meaningful assignments, or exclusion from important meetings can be an early signal that your role is being reassessed.
Communication from your manager may become more formal, infrequent, or focused mainly on criticism rather than development. You might see increased guidance on performance issues, even for relatively minor mistakes, or a sudden shift in expectations without support.
Another sign of being managed out is the loss of future-facing opportunities such as training, promotion discussions, or involvement in key projects. There might be frequent references to ‘fit’ or ‘restructure,’ which can refer to wider plans rather than your personal performance.
In practice, one of the best ways to manage up is to manage yourself. At Working Voices, our Managing up training course helps individuals establish effective techniques. A focus on communication helps participants learn to be clear, specific, and reliable when giving updates. They become skilled in developing a relationship rich in mutual understanding, helping them secure credibility, trust, and influence within the organisation.
Managing up is not about manipulation, flattery, or taking responsibility for your manager’s performance. It is about creating the conditions for better communication, stronger working relationships, and greater trust.
Managing up can feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s a skill, not a personality trait. And when done well it can tame even the most carnivorous growls into calm discussion, a clearer agenda, and a sharper sense of what matters most.
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The founder and CEO of Working Voices, Nick Smallman has been at the top of his profession for 25 years. Advising global blue-chip clients on engagement, productivity, and retention, he counsels leaders on increasing revenue via simple cultural adjustments.
Overseeing the successful expansion of Working Voices across the UK, the US, Asia, and the Middle East, Nick supports the leadership and communication capabilities of clients in a wide range of sectors. In particular, he has advised companies such as JP Morgan, Barclays, Sony, Nomura, M&S, and Blackrock for more than 15 years.
Developing his reputation for thought leadership, in recent years Nick has been leading work on The Sustainable Human, the subject of his forthcoming book. A concept unique to Working Voices, The Sustainable Human offers a package of solutions focusing on leadership enablement, future skills, and cultural harmony.
Working closely with HR specialist Mercer, Nick has developed solutions to four key modern workplace challenges:
“I’m excited to share the conclusions of three years of research that, if implemented, can make an immediate practical difference to leaders and their organisations.”
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