Adrian Watkins

It’s largely about clear communication and trust. Here’s how to do it.

“Managing up” sounds slightly nefarious, like it’s a way of manipulating your boss to get what you want or to maneuver your way in on (or out of) projects or responsibilities.

The truth is managing up is about building the trust and two-way relationship you need with your manager to be successful in the workplace. It’s about being proactive and finding ways to make your communication with your boss more productive, particularly if you have different (or even clashing) styles.

Managing up is especially helpful if you’re new to the organization or the team, or you’re reporting to a manager you haven’t worked with before, or if you’re managed by someone in a different office or location. And it’s absolutely crucial if you’re angling for a raise or a promotion.

These tips are designed to help you and your direct manager have clear and open lines of communication through which the information you both need to be effective can flow.

The following are five tips that are essential to managing up:

1. Figure out your manager’s communication style.

Is your manager the kind of person who doesn’t acknowledge any information that wasn’t in a Keynote or PowerPoint deck? Do they prefer face-to-face meetings, or do they communicate primarily by sending Slack messages at 6 a.m.? Are they always in their office, or do they roam the halls? Are they always on Do Not Disturb with a blocked calendar?

Every manager has a different communication style, and part of your job is to recognize and adapt to it accordingly. If your manager prefers meeting in person (or has a nightmare of an inbox) and you send them a three-page treatise on why you should get that assignment, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

It’s especially important to acknowledge that you might have totally opposite ways of working—and that you’re the one who’ll need to compromise. (As with everything, it’s important to have boundaries here. If you find yourself trying to be awake at 5 a.m. to catch them before their commute, the problem might not be yours to solve, and you’re probably in the territory of needing to have a very different conversation with them.)

If you’re not sure what makes your manager tick, check in with your colleagues or just ask your boss. Don’t be afraid to be direct here; after all, you’re trying to get information that will ultimately make you more productive and your manager’s life easier. It’s as simple as saying something like

“Hi [Manager], I want to make sure I’m sharing information in the best possible way for you. How would you prefer I keep you updated on what’s happening?”

2. Make sure you know what your manager thinks your job is.

Have you ever felt like the job you thought you were hired to do and the tasks you find yourself working on don’t quite line up? Or that the feedback you’re getting from your manager isn’t helping you prioritize your day-to-day?

You’re not alone – whether you’re working at a small start-up or a massive corporation, the feeling of simultaneously doing everything and not making anyone happy is not an uncommon one. This is often symptomatic of a mismatch between what your manager expects you to do and what you think your job is.

To start to resolve this, you need to have a focused discussion with your manager around three key questions:

1. How they define what your role is (and what it isn’t)
2. How they measure your success
3. How your role aligns with the overall goals of the team

The goal here is not for you to react—that comes later. It’s for you to gather some crucial information that will inform your next steps. You can handle this conversation in a couple different ways.

You can go with simple and direct:

“I’ve been on the team for a few months now, and I’d like your feedback on how you think I’m doing. Can we talk about how you see my current role?”

This approach is easier if these conversations are part of the company culture.

If they’re not, you might need a softer touch: “I’d love to get your perspective on how you think I’m doing in this role so I can continue to learn and improve. When would be a good time for us to talk through how you think I’m performing, and where I can grow?”

3. Next, confirm that what you’re doing every day is aligned with your boss’s expectations.

So you’ve worked out your manager’s preferred communication style and received feedback on why you’re on their team and what their expectations are. What’s next?

This is where you use what you’ve learned to start to take more control of your experience of the job.

One immediate, concrete step you can take for yourself is writing down what you’re spending the most time on, and then comparing that with the feedback you received. If your manager’s perception of what you should be doing is wildly different from your daily experience, for example, this is the time to think about why that might be.

Some common reasons for that disparity include being asked to do tasks that aren’t quite your remit—and for women, this sometimes extends to being the “office mom.” Maybe you’re expected to keep track of office supplies or whether the communal kitchen needs to be restocked or cleaned. Or maybe you’re informally helping coworkers with their own work or personnel challenges.

Depending on what you learn from going through the exercise of writing down how you’re spending your workday, you can start to close any gaps between what your manager wants and what you’ve actually been doing. If your task list reveals that what you’re doing is far from what you were supposed to be doing, the next discussion you have with your manager should be around either refocusing your time or updating your responsibilities.

(By the way, another reason for this mismatch could be that you actually don’t really have a job description. If that’s the case, this is a good time to write one yourself and then ask your manager to review it with you.)

Once you have that alignment, don’t forget to share what’s working with your manager in addition to what you need help with. Managers aren’t mind readers—if you’re not telling them about your accomplishments and your contributions, it’s unlikely they’ll know the full scope of what you’re adding to the team. And that means when it’s performance-review time, you’re more likely to be disappointed.

Similarly, and this is especially important if your boss is extroverted and loves being in the spotlight, let them know how your work is making them look good.

4. Get in the habit of not burying bad news.

Even if you’re fantastic at your job, you’re going to run into challenges. Perhaps you’re worried about a crucial upcoming deadline because you’re struggling to complete a difficult task. Maybe you know that there’s a personnel issue on your team that’s really affecting your colleagues. Or you might be finding it hard to prioritize everything you’re responsible for, and the quality of your work is suffering.

Whatever the case, it might be easy to feel like you should be bringing only wins to your manager. In fact, it’s never a good idea to surprise your boss with bad news particularly when it’s a situation they may have been able to avert or mitigate with more time or information.

Now, at the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm them with the details or relatively minor issues. It’s a bit of a balancing act, and it might take a moment for you to figure out what that balance looks like.

For example, not every problem needs your manager’s immediate attention, or requires the same degree of involvement. That relatively small but annoying issue you and your team were able to identify and resolve quickly? No need for a string of real-time updates; you can raise that in passing in your next one-on-one. That situation involving multiple other teams or senior company leaders and about which there’s an active and frantic Slack conversation or email thread? Don’t wait—escalate.

Escalating doesn’t, however, mean you drop the problem on them with no context and the subject line “URGENT.” In an ideal world, when you loop them into something you need their help with, you will also have included what you’ve done so far, what the risks are, and what you think a potential solution might be. This shows not just that you’re proactive and thoughtful about problem solving, but that you have the kinds of instincts that are necessary for the stretch opportunities that lead to promotions.

Look at this way: Keeping your manager abreast of challenges gives you the opportunity to tell them about the ways you solved an issue, or how you worked with your team to come up with a new approach.

5. You really DO have to check in with them regularly.

Meetings with your manager can be stressful, if not outright terrifying. But they’re an absolutely essential component of managing up.

Having regularly scheduled check-ins with your boss is crucial to maintaining that newfound alignment and avoiding negative surprises.

If your boss enjoys face-to-face conversations, work with them to get 30 minutes on their calendars on a recurring basis. Once a week is ideal, but even once a month is better than nothing. If they’re based in a different location, ask if they’d be up for a phone call or video chat.

And if you’re dealing with someone who’s religiously anti-meeting or has one of those calendars with no available slots, send them regular updates. To make sure you’re getting the answers and help you need, try including specific, actionable questions at the top of the email or the beginning of the deck so they know a response would be helpful.

Once you have that meeting on the calendar, get yourself prepared. It’s helpful to have a written list of topics you want to cover or issues you want to raise, or action items you agreed to follow up on in the previous meeting. And yes: If your manager is the presentation type, that might mean having a few slides ready to go. Some managers like getting that list or deck ahead of the meeting—another reason it’s helpful to know how they like to process information.

Give yourself enough time before the meeting to ensure that you’re in the meeting room or dialed in promptly, and enough of a buffer after that you’re not going to be too stressed if your check-in starts to run over.

With these five tips and a little bit of preparation, you’re on your way to a much better relationship with your manager and becoming a pro at managing up.

This article appeared on Self.