Managing Up: How To Improve Your Chances of Promotion

By Kempton Smith and Michael Williams

Managing up is a time-tested way to boost your chances of promotion in a corporation.

When you think about the everyday meaning of the word manage, it usually refers to a manager—subordinate situation. But, as a subordinate, you can influence your image among the higher-ups and thereby increase your chances of promotion by using some simple techniques and some easy, common sense rules.

Techniques for Managing Up:

  1. Be visible. Be seen lunching, socializing, and talking to higher level and important people. These techniques are often used by politician and entertainers.
  2. Volunteer your services to some highly visible charities, either through your work or in appropriate activities where you will be seen by people above you. This shows high energy and a good community image. These are the kinds of things that many senior corporate executives notice.
  3. Get published in a trade or professional journal with a forward-looking article in your area of expertise. Make sure those higher-ups get a copy.
  4. Try writing a regular bi-weekly or monthly feature for your local newspaper. Local newspapers are always looking for interesting materials.
  5. If you are a professional with some interesting ideas that appeal to the average person, try writing a regular article or column for the company newsletter, if there is one. If there is no company newsletter, get permission to start one. Here’s an example. A young (25 year old) accounting supervisor for a division of a large tobacco company started writing staff relationship articles for her company’s divisional newsletter. She had no formal education in public relations, but she had a natural ability that caught the eye of the chairman of the board. He followed her articles for 2 years, at which time the corporate head of public relations quit. Guess what? The 27-year old accounting supervisor got the job of Director of Public Relations for that Fortune 100 Company.

Rules to Follow:

  1. Avoid notoriety. Stay away from activist demonstrations and questionable locations where you might get on the wrong end of a news camera.
  2. Never drink alcoholic beverages at lunchtime on a workday. Even if the boss does so, don’t be tempted. If you drive a company owned vehicle, for any reason, never consume alcohol before driving because the legal risks extend to the company. Most companies will terminate an employee who drinks and drives a company vehicle.
  3. Always be available for overtime. Cancel whatever you have planned, the job comes first. That is the essential image that you must convey to the people above you; job first, family and friends second. When you reach your desired level in the hierarchy, then and only then can you afford to ease off a little.
  4. Never submit reports with errors in them. Always double check your information. Nothing is more self-destructive than incorrect reporting.
  5. Always be on time or early with accurate reports. Nothing bugs a senior executive more than late reports.
  6. Never upstage your boss in the presence of other people unless your boss asks you to tell something that you have both agreed to previously. A young man was in a corporate meeting with his boss. The chairman asked the young man’s boss a question, the boss didn’t know the answer, but the young man did and he volunteered the answer. That was the beginning of the end for that young man. Four months later he was fired. Under those circumstances he should have remained silent, unless his boss asked him for an answer.
  7. Always be punctual, particularly in the mornings. Most bosses are very observant in the mornings. If you have a tendency to be tardy the boss will notice. It always seems to happen when you are running late. The boss wants some information and you are not in yet, which gives your boss the feeling that you are unreliable. If your boss comes in early, it’s a good practice for you to do the same thing. Arrive earlier than your boss, and stay later.

Be Promotable:

In order to be promoted, make sure you are promotion material. When the person above you gets promoted into his or her boss’s position and in the past he/she has relied on you for excellent, dedicated support, you will probably be chosen to fill his/her old job. It’s called natural succession planning. Therefore, it follows that the rules for future promotion involve a great deal of hard work and dedication to your supervisor in such matters as:

  • Absolute reliability. Your boss usually makes it obvious to his/her superiors if you are reliable.
  • Always gets the job done. You need to have a reputation that sounds something like this: “If you want to sure it gets done, ask (your name).”
  • Technically excellent. An occasional mistake is O.K., but if you embarrass or annoy your boss or others with mistakes, then you are on shaky ground for promotion.
  • Political neutrality. Never display political one-upmanship with anyone in the organization. Nobody wants to risk being stabbed in the back, least of all by a subordinate that he or she has promoted.

For Managers:

A common scenario for executives and managers appointed or hired to a newly created position is the following. You are given a mission or broad based goal and then forgotten by your supervisor. Attempts to communicate with the supervisor are ignored, or the response is one of disinterest.

This is the signal to become entrepreneurial. Simply go out and do whatever it takes to satisfy the mission or achieve the goal. You will be expected to start from square one and do the job.

Therefore:

  • Plan carefully
  • Network
  • Organize the process
  • Setup the controls
  • Manage the results
  • Invite the supervisor to a celebration of success.

During this managing-up process you must utilize all of the other skills that you have. For example, you will have to:

  • Assume responsibilities,
  • Write your own job description,
  • Define your strategies,
  • Use your interpersonal skills to the maximum, and
  • Control your spending and be ready to justify expenditures.

Most importantly:

  • As you do each of these things, keep your boss informed by subject reports or by regular reporting on a monthly or weekly basis.

Conclusion:

If you are good at what you do make sure everyone, including your boss, knows it. Toot your own horn a little. By doing so, you will boost your chances of promotion.

Copyright © 2007 by Kempton Smith and Michael Williams