Teaching Learners How to 'Manage Up' at Work

Developing learners' technical skills and knowledge is only part of the puzzle. To truly thrive in their careers, they need a sophisticated set of professional behaviours. One of the most impactful, yet rarely taught, is the ability to 'manage up'.

This isn't about manipulation or flattery. It’s the professional practice of consciously and proactively working with your superior to achieve the best possible results for you, your manager, and the organisation. Teaching this skill prepares learners for positive destinations and enhances their long-term achievement.

Understand Your Manager's World

The first step in managing up is empathy. Learners often see a manager as just a boss, not as an individual with their own pressures and priorities. Encourage them to step into their future manager’s shoes.

• Identify their goals: What does the manager's success look like? What are their key performance indicators? Aligning your work to help them succeed is a powerful strategy.
• Observe their communication style: Do they prefer quick email updates, detailed reports, or face-to-face chats? Adapting to their style makes communication more efficient.
• Know their pressures: What are their biggest challenges and deadlines? Anticipating these allows a learner to offer support proactively and avoid adding to their stress.

Practice Proactive Communication

Effective upward management relies on clear, concise, and timely communication. The goal is to make it easy for a manager to provide support and guidance, not to make them chase for information.

• Provide regular, concise updates: A brief weekly summary of progress, achievements, and upcoming priorities can prevent a manager from needing to micromanage.
• Bring solutions, not just problems: When encountering a challenge, encourage learners to brainstorm one or two potential solutions before approaching their manager. This demonstrates initiative and problem-solving skills.
• Ask for feedback specifically: Instead of a vague "How am I doing?", teach them to ask, "Could you give me feedback on the structure of this report so I can improve next time?"
• Confirm instructions: A quick, "To confirm, you'd like me to prioritise X and have a draft ready by Tuesday?" avoids misunderstandings and wasted effort.

Build Reliability and Trust

Ultimately, a manager's confidence is built on trust and reliability. This is demonstrated through consistent actions, not words. It's a core component of developing strong professional behaviours.

• Meet your deadlines: Consistently delivering good work on time is the foundation of a great working relationship.
• Be honest about your capacity: It's better to say, "I can get that done, but it means my other deadline will slip. Which is the priority?" than to over-promise and under-deliver.
• Take ownership of mistakes: Everyone makes errors. Teach learners to own them quickly, explain what happened, and outline what they'll do to fix it and prevent it from happening again.
• Be a positive and dependable team member: Support colleagues and contribute to a productive atmosphere.

Where this fits in QualityHero

Explicitly teaching skills like 'managing up' is a key part of fostering professional behaviours, a crucial element of the 'Participation and development' and 'Achievement' evaluation areas at the provision-type level. You can use the SAR module to articulate your provider's strategic approach to this, and the Toolkit Areas module to collate evidence of how these skills are taught, practised, and assessed across different curriculum areas, demonstrating your commitment to preparing learners and apprentices for their next steps.