Managing Up When You Are Not Being Managed?Monday, May 01, 2006The art of managing up and down is not widely understood by managers and employees alike. Managing down is actually not the best way to describe how managers relate to their employees. Managing down put simply means managing employees. It requires that a manager apply all of the appropriate management techniques. It also requires that the manager respects each employee. The art of managing up is a bit more difficult for employees with little or no management experience. It requires that the employee appropriately disagree with their boss and voice their concern. Since managers are human beings (at least most) they make mistakes or miscalculations. They do not see everything they need to see in every situation. The employee often has a better grasp of the tasks at hand. If the employee sees their boss moving in the wrong direction, they should point this out to their manager. Done professionally married with a good relationship between manager and employee, everyone wins. If an employee has little or no input from their manager, they are not being managed (managed down). Often in this case, they are not being guided when they veer off course. The employee is stranded on an island with no feedback. If feedback does come it is often negative and that is abysmal management. So when this reader told me that they were told they needed to ?manage up? more, I asked several key questions. I learned that this employee was on the island and all of the feedback they received for the entire year was during the annual evaluation. I told this reader that you cannot be expected to manage up if you are not managed. It is so frustrating for me to see employees poorly managed and left defenseless at the end of the year during their performance evaluation. There should never be any surprises at an annual evaluation. Managers, if you are not meeting with your employees regularly and telling them the good, bad and the ugly throughout the year how can you dump all the negative stuff at the end of the year? Would you like it? Employees, why don?t you schedule meetings with your managers several times? Ask them for feedback, both positive and negative. Document the date you met with your boss and what was discussed. Communication between a manager and employee is primarily the manager?s responsibility. However, since managers often do not do a good job with thi it requires the employee take charge of his or her destiny. You can have more of an impact than you think. posted at 5/01/2006 07:00:00 PM |
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Copyright © 2006 Beat Your Own Drum
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