The leadership skill nobody teaches you
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Managing up.
This is one of the most important skill sets you can have as a leader, and almost nobody teaches it.
You don't take a class on this in school and mentorship around this is hard to find - let alone doing so in a way that honors a new era of leadership.
In the workplace, I don’t have to tell you that the ‘power over’ approach to leadership is dying hard. If you're told to do something, just do it. Don't push back. Don't ask questions. Deliver.
Maybe it doesn’t feel that harsh, but is that going on under the surface? Perhaps. I hope not for your sake, but this mentality is deeply embedded in most workplaces.
But here's what that costs you. Your voice. Your boundaries. Your time for creativity, process improvement, debriefing, and putting the people on your team first. And eventually, what’s at stake is the respect you have for yourself, and the respect your team has for you.
In this week's episode of The Unlock Lab, I get into what it really means to manage expectations, up, down, and across. Not as a tactic. As a leadership principle.
Here’s the stuff I talk about:
Why the deeper work and honoring that you’re equal to everyone you work with, has to come before any of the tactics
How to communicate timeline shifts without bringing problems. Hint: provide options
The "here's the menu, which way do you want to go?" approach that protects you and empowers your leader at the same time
Why over-communication is a feature, not a bother, especially when things are new
How managing expectations supports holding boundaries
So let me be brick to forehead for you real quick, if my messages hasn’t landed yet:
🦉Good leadership isn't nodding your head and saying yes and doing all the things.
You're going to lose a lot of respect from your people if you're constantly saying yes and forcing other people to overdo and overwork. We have to break the systems that are happening right now. In order to break the systems, we have to change how we lead.
To change how we lead, we have to put managing expectations on the table.
Tackle the difficult conversations. That's where your leadership expansion lives.
🎧 Listen to the full episode →
