Managing up: professional skill or survival strategy?

Early in my career, in my very first role as in-house recruiter, my manager (HRD) gave me a piece of advice I did not question for a long time: always overstate your #hiring timelines when you open a new role. Give yourself more room than you think you need.

She was right, in a sense, and it worked because hiring managers stopped chasing me so aggressively (and I saved myself from a #burnout). The problem I did not see at the time: I had just learned to negotiate, not collaborate.

Managing up CAN be a professional #skill. Understand how your leader operates, anticipate what they need before they ask and you will make both of your lives easier.

That version is real. The proactive email that books a decision meeting a week in advance because you know your director is overloaded? Professional intelligence.

But, the version I was taught was something else. And it's so common that it's almost the norm.

Here are some examples: engineering leads overestimating sprint deliverables. Project managers building extra buffer into budgets. Commercial directors overselling to potential customers.

In high-pressure environments, padding your estimates is how you protect your team

That is the defensive version. The signal it sends is that honesty carries a penalty here.

What changes it

It happens at the culture level:

• React to bad news with curiosity and understanding. If a team lead brings an honest, uncomfortable estimate and the response is pressure to revise it downward, the next estimate arrives pre-padded. What you do in that moment sets the pattern.

  
  

• Make shared pressure visible across teams. The negotiation #culture thrives in silos. When engineering does not know what commercial has promised the client, everyone protects their own corner. Getting teams in the same room for forced alignment and setting realistic expectations for all sides can be a game-changer.

  
  

• Absorb pressure rather than transmit it. Leaders who build a strong culture prefer to reset a client expectation rather than pass the cost downstream. One difficult external conversation over three difficult internal ones.

Managing up will never disappear entirely. In complex organizations, some of it is just good communication and common sense. But, the why and how it's done can send significant signals about your company culture.

Have you ever been in a #work environment where the honest estimate was always the wrong one to give? And, did you adapt to it or try to change it?

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Sparking Leadership #43: a weekly series on human-centered, sustainable #leadership. Lead with spark!