Multidirectional Management: Leading Up, Down, Across, In, and Out

Nov 22

Most people are pretty good at managing in one direction. Maybe they’re good at managing their team. Or maybe they have good relationships with their peers. Or maybe their customers love them. Or maybe they’re number one with their boss. But not many people are good at managing in all those directions. It’s a good idea to take stock in how effectively you manage all these relationship vectors, and see where you could use a tune up.

Managing Up: Your Boss

It seems counterintuitive, but often, the most high-performing experts don’t have great relationships with their bosses. Ambition and expertise can run afoul of following orders and toeing the company line. Being part of an organization means compromising how you might otherwise do things if you weren’t a part of a system. That’s true even if that system doesn’t make sense to you, or worse, DOES make sense, but is poorly designed. When you join an organization, you’re making a compromise. And that ultimately means following where the boss leads. To

build stronger relationships with your boss:

Know what they want. Ask! Asking for clarity does NOT signal you’re incompetent or can’t do your job. Asking means you’re seeking alignment and clarity between the way you might do things and what your boss expects. Ask, “Hey boss, just to make sure we’re on the same page, here’s how I was thinking I’d proceed. How does that approach sound to you?”
Lean in to solve problems. There’s a tendency for people at the top of an organization to suck up responsibility. Consequently, they feel overburdened. Help alleviate that burden. Find and fill gaps. Assume more authority than you think you may have. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re not in your first job out of high school, and you can think of ways to solve most problems on your own without hand holding. Most overburdened bosses appreciate initiative!
Keep them updated. Regularly let your boss know how your work is going. It keeps them informed and shows that you're on top of things. But do so in a way that doesn’t add to their burden. If you're cc’ing them on emails and they already aren’t reading all their emails, you’re not helping. Find another way of communicating that works for their individual preferences, like phone calls, texts, drive by conversations, or updating a shared list.

Managing Down: Your Direct Reports

Chances are, you didn’t pick the people that are reporting to you. You may have inherited them. They may have been assigned to you. They may have been the only ones available. And it’s easy to make up stories about them. Like, they should be more autonomous. Their work products should be better. They shouldn’t need so much hand-holding. They focus on the wrong things. Or some other version of, “That’s not how I would do it.”

You’re absolutely right: that’s not how you would do it. But unless you want to do it yourself (and you can’t do everything: remember the trap of sucking up responsibility), it will NEVER be exactly how you would do it.

Being a good leader is NOT about changing others. It’s about changing yourself to meet others where they are. Here’s how you do it:

Be OK with 80%. Even if the job is 80% of what you think it should be, that’s still a B. An 80% job you didn’t do is worth more than a 100% job you had to do yourself. Lower your standards. Not everything has to be 100%. No one ever earned a Michelin star for an email they wrote.
Be clear on the tasks that DO have to be 100%. If most tasks can be 80%, then specifically list what few tasks have to be 100%. For us at Lizard Brain, our 100% tasks means making sure we have all the logistical details for each project and designing to those constraints. It also means a high touch of design and delivery with our clients (more about this later.) So, we built and maintain systems that tell us when any part of those tasks is missing. And there’s a direct, clear line that connects those 100% tasks and our values.
Create a culture of feedback. Feedback might be the breakfast of champions, but the first few bites can be salty. So up front, set the expectation that yours is a culture where feedback is freely shared and received. Introduce and frequently use a feedback model so that the language becomes a trigger for openness and receiving of the feedback. Our favorite feedback model for work products begins with the phrases, “I like…” “I wish…” and “I wonder…”
Celebrate successes. Learn the love language of the folks who work for you. Do they prefer words of affirmation? Small gifts? Recognition and approbation? Time together? Acts of service? Autonomy and authority? Remember: it’s not about expressing YOUR love language, it’s about speaking to each of them in THEIR individual love language. (And please note: people’s love language at work is DIFFERENT than their love language at home!)

Managing Across: Your Peers and Colleagues

What about those folks with whom you don’t have direct lines of authority? More and more organizations are “flattening,” “matrixing,” or otherwise changing the traditional hierarchies of authority to focus on “collaboration” and “teamwork.” For people who PREFER clearer lines of authority, this flattening can create ambiguity, complexity, and confusion. How can you manage people who you don’t have authority over?

It’s all about influence and persuasion.

Start with relationships. Take time to build trust and get to know your colleagues. You don’t need to know their favorite breakfast cereal, but you DO need to know what motivates them. Why did they join your organization? What does a good day look like for them? What about a bad day? You may be in a position to maximize their gains or alleviate their pains.
Check in regularly. Meet informally. Grab lunch. Break bread. Get interested in what they do. If you only connect with your peers when you need something, you’re behind the curve, and you’ll be seen as that guy who only shows up when they want something.
Double down on listening. Cultivate a collection of open-ended questions. Practice humble inquiry. Be a coach and a sounding board. Ask: “What’s going on for you?” There’s a reason to invest in practicing listening: without direct lines of authority, you have to rely on your REFERENT authority, that is, the reputation you build based on your personality and the degree to which people see you as a partner and ally.

Managing Out: Your Customers and Suppliers

You might have different words for these folks: clients, stakeholders, shareholders, associates, vendors, or contractors, but ultimately, these are people who sit outside your organization that either receive or provide what your organization needs to operate. How you treat customers and suppliers boils down to two words: customer service.

Treasure them. Because, ultimately, your customers and suppliers IS where your treasure comes from. Without customers and without suppliers, you’d have nothing coming in and nothing going out.
Treat each customer like they’re your only one. Each customer should feel like they’re getting your best effort, your star treatment, your red carpet service. And if you’re stretched so thin you can’t provide that first class, world class service, it’s time to hire, or to refer your customers elsewhere.
Treat your suppliers like your business depends on them. Because it does. And because whatever they provide and the way they provide sets the bar for your highest standard. You can’t make a great salad with rotten lettuce. And you can’t deliver a great service contract with disgruntled subcontractors.

Managing In: Your Self

The work of managing others starts with managing yourself. There’s no single perfect style of leadership. You could argue that Gandhi and Patton were both great leaders, but if they had swapped places, chances are they wouldn’t have fared so well. Leadership is situational. Success depends on the agility of the individual to read and adapt to the specific circumstances of the situation, and to the people that are a part of it.

Shine a light on your blind spots. Knowing that you’re good at and what you’re not good at is a start. But the real derailers are the unknown unknowns about your personality or management approach that can jump up and bite you. Ask for feedback. Take a personality assessment. Participate in a 360°. And take the results seriously.
Pick one or two things to work on. Maybe you do a 360° and get feedback that you need to be a better listener, or you need to be more decisive, or you need to do a better job of dealing with ambiguity, or managing through systems. That’s great! Your people are being honest with you. But don’t take on all of those challenges at once. It’s easy to lose momentum in the face of ten challenges to overcome. Work on one or two for several weeks or months until you feel like you’ve improved to the point where you can take on a new challenge.
Track your progress. Whether it’s bullet journaling or daily pages or a goal tracking app or sticking gold stars on a calendar, you’re more likely to make progress when you’re keeping track of it. And to that point, don’t be shy about telling a close friend or colleague about what you’re working on. They’re likely to support you, and you’re more likely to follow through.

Multidirectional Management Matters

The farther you go in your career, being your best self with your boss, team, suppliers, providers, and colleagues matters more to your success than technical skills. That’s the Great Skill Shift: the technical skills that made you successful as an individual contributor become less and less important to your success at the same time that your ability to build relationships becomes more and more important. So, check yourself: are you good at managing up, down, across, in, or out? And which direction needs a little more work and focus?

Contact Lizard Brain today to help your team manage multiple in directions.

Chris Cushing