The managers I’ve seen rewarded most by the business are often excellent operators before they are excellent people managers. They are good people, and they make the business better, but they are not always naturally great at managing the day-to-day texture of your career. That means if you want a great relationship with your manager, you cannot wait passively for them to run it. If you want the most out of your career, you have to manage up. To most people, managing up sounds like politics or doing parts of your manager's job you expect them to be doing. I used to believe it was an annoying thing I had to do because my manager wasn't doing what I expected of them. I now understand that if I want to build the career I desire and receive the most from my manager, managing up is the most effective way to accomplish both. Managing up means making it easier for your manager to understand your work, your goals, your risks, and the places where they can help. Without the necessary context, making your work ambitious and visible is extremely difficult. If you go into your one-on-ones expecting your manager to context dump everything you need to be the most effective then you're going in with ill conceived expectations. Your manager is human and prone to human follies such as forgetfulness, mental overload, and just being unsure what's the right amount of information to give you to achieve the balance of knowing enough and not being overwhelmed. If you enter these meetings with an agenda for what kind of information you want to get out of them and what kind you can give them to help them be most effective, this will work wonders. It's a two-way street, you know things they can't see because they're not in the work as much as you are and they know things you don't because of the context-building their doing as effective business operators. A tangential benefit is that you'll begin to learn how they see the world. **Sample 1:1 Agenda** - What changed this week that I may not be able to see from my level? - What decision am I about to make where you should have input? - What is on your plate that I could take or make easier? - What do I want next in my role? Monthly, so it never becomes a surprise. The best managers have figured out ways to effectively give feedback, ask for things, or collaborate with stakeholders. Think of all the times you've asked for something and your manager worked with you to figure out the most appropriate way to say the ask to achieve your goals. This is a skill that can be learned, I know because I learned it first-hand from some great managers. Just recently, I worked with one of my direct reports to entirely reframe their request in a way that would both get them what they were looking for, and would frame it in a way that wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings as a result. We were only able to achieve this after some collaboration to really understand what they were looking for. In a group meeting they asked for one thing and then in a subsequent one-on-one discussion it turns out the motivations were entirely different and therefore the ask was slightly different. They believed I knew the subtext of what they wanted and would recognize and advocate without being primed. Unfortunately, that subtext was not top of mind for me and as a result their initial ask was turned down. **Example of priming** > Heads up, I want to talk about my role in the project tomorrow. The short version is that I'm ready to take on a larger role, specifically owning end-to-end the migration. Wanted to let you know so that it's not sprung on you. People hint things, they work hard, and they wait to be noticed for that hard work. However, most managers won't infer and won't remember an inference three to six months later without some sort of primer before the discussion. If something matters to you, prime the conversation before the moment where you need advocacy. Your manager is much more useful when they know what role you need them to play. This comes with the caveat of high trust. Consistently achieving outcomes for the business buys you autonomy. It buys you the phrase "I trust whatever call you make". This comes from a consistent and reliable track record of prioritizing the business's needs. However, you can lose trust through things like hearing about things from other people first, inconsistently delivering, or prioritizing outcomes not aligned with the business's needs. Without that trust, asking for what you need becomes harder. Ethan Evans calls this the Magic Loop. Do your job well, ask your manager what would help them, do that think, then ask for something that moves where you want to go (repeat). Most people start with the last step and conclude that asking doesn't work. Managing up is not about compensating for a bad manager. It is about refusing to make your career dependent on someone else’s memory, intuition, or available bandwidth. The best manager relationships are built intentionally. When you bring context, clarity, trust, and direct asks, you make it easier for your manager to help you. Good managers notice that. Great careers are often built on it.