Why We Should Manage Up to Better Serve Our Teams
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In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with author and executive coach Roberta Matuson on how managing up your organization will benefit the team you lead.
A few reasons why she is awesome — she is a keynote speaker, author, executive coach and has been the president of Matuson Consulting for almost 3 decades. Helping the best organizations attract and retain the best people. Clients include GM, Microsoft, and Takeda Pharmaceutical. She’s been the author of 7 books on leadership and talent, including her latest release Can We Talk? 7 Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work. And she’s here to talk about managing up to support our teams.
Connect with, and learn more about Morgan on her…
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“What leaders can do is they can say to their people, ‘I want you to manage me. And this is what that means.’ Because if your people are managing you, you’re so freed up to do what you need to get done.”
Roberta Matuson
Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Roberta Matuson. And here is why she is awesome. She’s a keynote speaker, author, and executive coach, and has been the president of Matuson Consulting for almost 30 years. Three decades helping the best organizations attract the best people.
Clients include GM, Microsoft, Takeda Pharmaceutical. It goes on and on and on that list. She’s been the author of six, count it, six books on leadership and talent, including her latest release, which is, Can We Talk Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work. And she’s here today to talk to me and talk to you about managing up to support our teams.
Hello, Roberta.
Roberta Matuson: Well, hello, Russel. So nice to meet you. I actually have seven books.
Russel Lolacher: Oh man, see, I can’t keep up and you’ll probably have another one written by the end of the show.
Roberta Matuson: And since we’ve spoken, a new book has come out. So that’s the third edition is suddenly in charge, managing up, managing down, succeeding all around. And by the time you and I are done speaking, I’m sure I will have written it. An eighth
Russel Lolacher: Well, I mean, it’s nice. I mean, we can’t see your hand. So, I mean, I’m sure you’re typing away right now at another one.
Roberta Matuson: Yes, I can multitask quite well.
Russel Lolacher: So powerful, so powerful, Roberta. So before we get into our topic today, let’s start with the question I ask all my guests, which is what is your best or worst employee experience?
Roberta Matuson: Well, I have to tell you, everything that I’ve learned about management, I learned from the worst boss I ever had. And, I mean, if you can think of one thing or anything that bosses shouldn’t do, she did. So, for example showing favorites. Clearly I wasn’t one of them. I actually, and, and I was young, so I, I didn’t even notice, but my peers did.
And they were like, why does she treat you differently? And, turns out, there was a little bit of discrimination going on, shall we say. So that was rather interesting. She was a micromanager. She loved, she was more like a sniper, she loved taking people out in front of me, just to show me that she could, meaning I’ll never forget the day she just went off on our benefits broker.
And then she was… when she was done, she went like this and she said, ‘wasn’t that great?’ And I just sat in my, across the desk and I was like, I am so out of here. So a lot of what I write about when people read my books, I mean, they’re all true stories, but much of this is based on that manager.
And so I would like to officially thank her.
Russel Lolacher: So you said this happened earlier in your career. Was this one of your first, second or third jobs, sort of at the beginning?
Roberta Matuson: Probably maybe my third. So kind of in the beginning-middle?
Russel Lolacher: And how did you learn that this was, I mean, was it just your colleagues going, this isn’t right, or were you learning as you went along going, okay, this is, I don’t wait, what?
Roberta Matuson: Well, I, I learned on my own that her behaviors were not appropriate in, in the way that she treated people and managed people, but the bit about being treated differently… you’re in it, right? And you just think, oh, everyone’s getting treated like crap.
Russel Lolacher: Right.
Roberta Matuson: Or everyone’s getting micromanaged. Or everybody is being spoken to with that kind of tone.
And then we’re like, ‘no, it’s just you.’ Maybe because I was the only one in the firm that didn’t go to an Ivy League school. I don’t know, but they thought it was something else. And I, in retrospect, think it was too.
Russel Lolacher: Did you go into consulting soon after that? Or were you, did you go… I mean, truthfully, I’ve asked this question almost 200 times now on the show, and most of the negative ones are always people where it’s their last job before they become a consultant.
Roberta Matuson: Well, actually I went into another job, which was a complete 360 in terms of how I was treated. I mean, I was like a goddess. I mean, I couldn’t do no wrong until again, some things happened in the organization and all of a sudden the guns came out. And after that, I was like, you know what? I’m a little, I’m getting a little too old for this. And I noticed early on in my career that the people who really got listened to were the consultants, not the leaders. I was like, I’m going to be a consultant.
Russel Lolacher: And that’s such a cliche too, because how many organizations where they’re like, I’ve been telling you this for five years, you hire a consultant, you listen to them. They’ve been here a month and now you’re going to do something about it. I mean, I’ve heard that story over and over again.
Roberta Matuson: Okay. But I was a little smarter than that. And that was to our subject of managing up. When my boss would tell me about a, a new idea that we should implement because he had gone to a cocktail party the night before with his peers, and said, Oh, I think we should do this. And of course that THIS was what I told him we should be doing four months ago.
I just looked at him and I said, ‘Martin, I think that’s an excellent idea. And I’m going to go make that happen.’ So, I learned, like, I have to manage him, I can’t say, well, wait a minute, I was the one who told, it, it was like, he had this idea, he was sharing it with me, I was gonna go implement it, and we were gonna get it done.
Russel Lolacher: And that has changed quite a bit over the years and how people may or may not want to approach their bosses and that’s what we’re gonna talk a bit about today is about managing up. So before we get into all of that, though, I like to define what we’re talking about. So, how would you define managing up in an organization?
Roberta Matuson: Well, the way I define it is, managing your boss and the relationships above you, so that you can get the resources that you need for yourself and for your team.
Russel Lolacher: Would somebody jaded, I’m not looking at myself, call this Oh, I don’t know, ‘babysitting’ or ‘manipulation’ because I’ve I’ve mentioned this even previously about a scenario and immediately I got comments going, ‘why should I have to lead my leaders?’
Roberta Matuson: Because if you don’t, you’ll be like me and you will get taken out by a wave you never saw coming. So you can either step up and manage your boss or you can sit back and say, well, why should I have to do that? And maybe in six months, maybe less, you might not have a job. That’s why. But a lot of people do… they, there’s a, there’s a misunderstanding about managing up.
It is not about sucking up. It’s not about being the boss’s favorite. It’s really about helping your boss look good so that you look good. And when you have a great relationship with your boss and your boss’s peers, you seem to get things done effortlessly. You get resources when no one else does. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be in that position?
Russel Lolacher: Well, it almost sounds like just from your description there, it almost sounds like a Jekyll and Hyde situation based on the toxicity of the culture because on one side, there’s managing up where it’s Well pat him on the head, tell the leader what they want to hear when that’s a toxic a culture or the better culture, which is when you’ve explained right here, which is more about the relationship building, making them look good through doing great work.
So I can see how managing up is still the same, but it might be different based on the quality of the culture and the relationships you have?
Roberta Matuson: Well, let’s, let’s be honest here. If you are in a situation where you are in a toxic culture, number one, you’re you have to make a decision, right? You don’t get to stay there and whine. You, you either decide, okay, I’m going to ride this out and I’m going to at night do what I did and take salsa dancing lessons just to keep my sanity.
Or you’re going to say, you know what this isn’t working for me. I’m going to find another opportunity. But what you don’t get to do is sit and complain on and on and on to your family members, to your peers. You you, just can’t do that. That doesn’t work. And you’re adding to the toxicity, but you know, believe it or not.
And like you, I had a hard time believing it until I saw it. There are actually some cultures. that are healthy. So, and they’re not all toxic, but, but then I also want to say, cultures, there, there are these things called subcultures. So for example why is it that people in sales, like everybody is smiling in the sales department and, and people are weeping in customer service, right?
They are, they’re crying. They’re, it’s like a horrible situation. And oftentimes it’s because they have a different leader. Different kind of leader. So when you do go and look for a new opportunity and you go on to places like GlassDoor, sometimes it can be confusing because you’re like, I don’t understand like how come there are people who are really happy and people who are really miserable. And so my advice would be to really look to see if you can find comments from people who are in the division or in the department that you are looking to work for, because that’s going to tell you the real story.
Russel Lolacher: That’s great advice. Cause often I’ll be asked about industries going, what’s it like to work in that industry? I’m like, the organization could be great, but you might get the worst boss in that organization. It’s one, it’s not one culture. It’s 17, 000 subcultures that may or may not impact your mental health.
So that’s a great advice about GlassDoor because people don’t see it that way.
Roberta Matuson: Yeah. No, and I also I do a lot of executive coaching and I tell my clients especially those that are looking to make a transition, I’m like, look, you’re better off having a great boss and a not so great job than a great job and a not so great boss. So if you have to choose, choose the great boss.
Russel Lolacher: So you go into an organization, you don’t know yet whether you’re going to have to manage up or not. I mean, there’s certain levels I’m guessing. Well, that’s actually the first question I want to ask is, is there a degrees? Are there degrees to managing up?
Roberta Matuson: Well, first of all, whenever you go into an organization, you have to manage up. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the line, in the manufacturing plant, or whether you’re going in as an executive. Everybody needs to be managing their boss because bosses are really busy people and you’re just one person in their line of responsibility.
And unless you take charge and initiative and build that relationship so that you’re seen, you’re going to find that you’re going to be sitting there when this new person who’s been with the company maybe six months, Gets promoted and you’re like, What the heck? I’ve been here for three years and like, Yeah, nobody knows your name.
Russel Lolacher: Yeah. Branding and marketing yourself is huge. Continue on though, that the, are there degrees to it? Because as we mentioned earlier, it could depend on the culture. It can depend on the boss. I mean, I’ve seen leaders where literally you have to manage every interaction, every comment, everything. While others, it is very a collaborative environment between the leader. Cause the relationship is so good. So is it just ones and zeros?
Roberta Matuson: Well.
Russel Lolacher: Or is there a degree to it?
Roberta Matuson: Well, you must have read my book. My book Suddenly In Charge, because I define what I call the four different types of leaders. And of course, there are many more. But for our purposes, there are four. And the kind of leader that you just described is more of a consultative leader. There’s somebody who really wants your input.
So once you are able to decode your boss and understand, Oh, I have a consultative leader. So when they ask me, well, what do you think Roberta? And I go like, or I don’t contribute, or I don’t offer my thoughts and ideas. That’s not going to put me in a really good place place with that boss, as opposed to a bureaucratic leader who is like follow the rules. I’m like, okay, where’s the playbook? So you need to know like what you’re dealing with and, and you’ll figure it out really quickly if you take the time to decode your boss.
Russel Lolacher: I guess that just naturally leads into my question of how do you decode your boss? Like what is, what is a couple of things you should be looking for?
Roberta Matuson: You ask them questions and you start with tell me, how would you like me to manage you? And they’ll look at you like, what are you talking about? Okay. And then you say, by that I mean when there’s an issue, do you prefer that I let you know? Do you prefer that I resolve it myself? Would you like to meet weekly? Do you prefer to do that via Zoom? Should we set up a call? Should we meet in person? Like how, how do you want me to give you information about my job so that you know what’s going on? Or are you one of those kinds of leaders that says, Oh, okay.
Well, if there’s a problem, I’ll let you know. Cause there’s such a thing as obviously oversharing. So you don’t want to be like, oh, and then I went to the printer and then I pushed the button, it’s like, no, just give me the bottom line. Here’s the report.
Russel Lolacher: It’s, it’s really important. I mean, I’m a communication nerd, so I love the idea of being open and honest in your communication about what the expectations are. If your boss is not going to tell you what their expectations are, it’s your role to set those boundaries. So you don’t go insane trying to guess or read between the lines.
I used to put out an email to people called my pester list. Like it was my followup list. I’m like, how would you like to be reminded? Insanely? Like every hour. Or sporadically, once every two weeks? You choose. It was like, there was five choices that they got to pick in how do you want to be followed up with?
I called it the pester list, but they’re like I’ll take number three. Great. Then at least I know what the level of annoying versus necessary is.
Roberta Matuson: Well, what’s interesting… oh my God. You must’ve met my boss that I was talking about. One day she said to me, she called me into her office and she said, kid you not. Roberta, you’re, you’re not meeting my expectations. Followed by, but I’m not sure if I ever told you what they are. So I was like, huh?
And then I thought to myself, Oh well, she went to Harvard and obviously at Harvard, they had a course on mind reading. I went to Northeastern. We were so busy working cause we were like the working class kids at that time. We didn’t get that course. Like, how could I read your mind? Like, and then I thought to myself, how could a woman of that quote unquote intelligence even have something that stupid come out of her mouth? But that’s exactly what she said to me. So now, I would have early on gone to my boss and said, Hey, let’s get some clarity here around. What are the goals?
What are your, what are your expectations here? How do you want me to communicate with you? I would have been much more directive than waiting for her to, create a situation that 30, 40 years later, I still remember.
Russel Lolacher: Yeah, yeah, it’s funny too, because we have performance reviews and they’re all about meeting expectations, not meeting expectations or exceeding expectations. They always have this generic levels of what you’re meeting. But if the expectations are never actually formally explained, which to be honest, they aren’t as often as people think they are.
Roberta Matuson: Happens all time time or they get changed. They changed. Your company all of a sudden goes through… the economy tanks. And, and your company changes the goals and nobody tells you, and now you’re being measured on these new goals. But Oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you about those. So it’s and I’m glad we’re talking about this because when we’re talking about what they do, the people who are listening to your podcast are either the theys. Or they’re the soon to be theys. So…
Russel Lolacher: And that’s exactly it. And one of the things I learned quickly in doing this show is that leaders do not understand the impact they have on their organization and the individuals that work for them because most of them are so busy, they’re focused so on the job, they’re managing up, or they’re just trying to put out the next fire that they don’t understand the wreckage or…
it could even be good impacts, but they’re onto the next thing so quickly that they don’t even realize that I’m like, you understand that what you just did, that employee is going to remember that 20, 30 years from now and write a book about it.
Roberta Matuson: Or or seven.
Russel Lolacher: Exactly.
Roberta Matuson: The thing is, I, I think today, I mean, I was talking to my niece last night about this, the impact that leaders have and on mental health. And I remember because of that boss that you and I were talking about, my friends suggested that I meditate. Okay. Well, I was so desperate. I mean, I’m from New York. We don’t meditate like we’re on the move. I’m like, really? She’s like, yeah. So she sent me to this to this woman. I think she was part of an ashram. I didn’t even know what that was, but I went and I would sit there and I would chant with her. Literally just sit there and go, and then finally, I mean, I had this epiphany. I’m like, I don’t want to spend my nights doing this. Like I want to learn, as I mentioned, I want to learn how to dance. I don’t want to be meditating. And that’s when I got out. I was like, this isn’t working.
Russel Lolacher: How does this benefit your teams? As you’re someone that’s interacting with your boss, managing up as it were, how does it benefit the team that’s working for you? Are they not having to manage you as well?
Roberta Matuson: Well, here’s how it really benefits your team. If you’re doing a great job of managing up and you go to your boss and say, Hey, listen, this team has way more work than they can possibly do, and they’re getting tired and exhausted, and things aren’t really working out well here. I need another person.
If they have a good relationship with their boss, they’re more likely to get that additional head count, than the person next to them who has not managed the relationship. If they want to go in there and fight for you to get you more money, if they’ve got a good relationship with their boss, they’re going to be successful in getting you the extra income that you so desire and need and are worthy of.
So there’s a lot of reasons how that can benefit the team. Plus they, they’ll get promoted. Which means that, hey, their job is available. And so what you need to do the moment their job becomes available is ask for it.
Russel Lolacher: So first, I’m wondering, you should be talking to your teams about the fact that you’re managing up. It sounds like you need to be pretty clear and transparent about that. So how can your team be helping you as a leader manage up? Because they’re benefiting from it if they, so why not have, they have some skin in the game.
Roberta Matuson: Well, exactly. I actually had a number of people by Suddenly In Charge, half the book is on managing up and the other half’s on managing down and they’ve given it to their boss and they’ve said, I’ll tell you what, I’ll read the managing up part, you read the managing down part. What leaders can do is they can say to their people, I want you to manage me. And this is what that means. Because if your people are managing you, you’re so freed up to do what you need to get done. You’re not like, Oh my gosh, like putting out another fire. They’re coming to you when there’s embers burning. They’re, they’re letting you know something’s going to happen. So you’re in a much stronger position if you, if you do this.
Russel Lolacher: How does ego get in the way? Because there are some supervisors who are like, I don’t need to be managed up when they’re the perfect person that needs to be managed up, but they’re resistant to it because they feel like they got to a certain position where they don’t feel like that that is something that they need.
Roberta Matuson: Oh, I honestly never met a manager like that. And I’ll, I’ll share a story. I was conducting a meeting for the president of a hospital. I was facilitating a leadership meeting for him. And he sat, I remember he was at the end of the conference room table, just sitting back, hands folded… the routine, right? And when I started talking about, listen to the executives, all of you, as I see that guy at the end, they were like, yeah, I’m like, you need to be managing him. And he’s back there like this. Like they want to be managed. They understand they’re managing their boss. And if you say, well, they’re the CEO of the company, the president, they’re managing their board.
You, you might say it’s a family owned business. They’re managing their spouse. Everybody’s managing somebody.
Russel Lolacher: Maybe it’s a communications exercise. Like maybe if you do run into that, just say, I’m here helping you out. I’m here to make your job easier. Don’t use the frame managing, managing up. Cause it does sound…
Roberta Matuson: Yeah, I want to make your job easier, what do you need from me? Oh my gosh. Do you know anyone who would say, oh, don’t do that.
Russel Lolacher: Exactly. Cause even those with the biggest ego feel like, Oh, well, of course, why wouldn’t you help me? Now, of course I’m being, I’m tipping way farther over to that ego sense. But it does exist. So yeah, I love the idea of but I’m here to help greatness be greater. However, you want to phrase it. But at the end of the day, I love the it is about relationships here.
It is about if you build a better relationship with that boss, as you’re illustrating, they’ll listen to you because if you’re just a cog in a wheel to them, which some people are because they’re so busy, it’s breaking down that wall with your boss by helping them that will help you get those resources.
Because we are just a means to an end to a lot of leaders who are too busy to look at us anything but.
Roberta Matuson: Right, and Most of the times it’s really not intentional.
Russel Lolacher: Absolutely.
Roberta Matuson: I mean, they’re not ignoring you on purpose.
Russel Lolacher: What would you say to those, younger generations that may have a huge problem with this because there is, and I go back to my earlier point of why am I having to lead my leader? Why can’t they just do their job? Why can’t they support me? I work for them. They should be helping me. Why do I have to help them? Why shouldn’t leaders lead? So what do you say to somebody that would say that?
Roberta Matuson: I would tell them, listen, I mean learn from me. I didn’t do this and I was taken out by a wave I never saw coming. And today, right now, it is harder than ever to land a new job. I mean, even though the economy is supposedly humming, we’re seeing a real slowdown in hiring. It’s taking really a long time. All this A.I. is is overloading H. R. staff. It’s really taking a long time. So if you have been fortunate enough to land a good job and, and, and you think that, hey, this is a place that I might like to stay, then you have to invest in yourself and you have to start learning how to manage yourself, manage your boss.
It is just the reality. And if you don’t want to play that game, you know what? I’m okay with that. But then maybe think about starting your own business or going… I don’t know, starting a farm. I don’t know what job there is that doesn’t require this.
Russel Lolacher: I was having a, an interesting conversation with someone that was just entering the corporate world and she was coming from a university where everybody around here was like, why do we even have professionalism? Why is it like they were very much about the, what they want, the world they want to enter, not the world, the way it is.
And though there is a lot of change happening and don’t deny that there is a lot of change happening in the corporate world that wasn’t the way it was even five years ago, there are certain tenants within just human interaction that’s not going away anytime soon. And to hear people be that stubborn, which I find hilarious because the Boomers are just as stubborn, they’re just on the other end of it.
So it’s like, you’re a lot more similar than you think you are, but it’s really about, like you say, it’s about the relationship and managing up. It’s helping.
Roberta Matuson: Yeah, I don’t know, necessarily know if it’s stubborn. I think it’s more being naive. We all, we all thought if you want to talk about the generations, I, I do a lot of work in that space and we all thought we were going to change the world. We, every one of us and, and we thought our parents ruined the world for us. And now you’re talking to Gen Z and it’s like, look at the mess you’ve left us. And like, I’m like, boy, that sounds familiar. I’m waiting for like the next Woodstock to come along. I mean, it just, it is what it is. And, look, you can learn from other people’s mistakes or you can dig your heels in and say, that’s just a bunch of crap. And then learn your, learn the hard way. That’s really up to you.
Russel Lolacher: Yeah, I always find that funny when people are like, but the Boomers, they ruin everything. I’m like, yeah, and they were hippies once too. So they were, they were going to change the world and now they’re the ones that you’re saying are ruining it. I don’t know.
Roberta Matuson: Today, I think, is Mick Jagger’s birthday, and, and I think he just turned 81, like it’s like it’s crazy, and he said, this is really interesting, when he was younger, he said, if I’m still singing Satisfaction when I’m like 40, I’ll kill myself.
Russel Lolacher: Double that. Double that, Mick.
Roberta Matuson: Okay, well, I saw him in concert, and he sang that, and he is still alive and kicking. So, I mean, we learn, right? We say things when we’re young, and this person that was kind of tussling with you on that topic, trust me, they’ll come back in five, ten years and say, Oh, I think that I need to be doing this and you’ll be like, what a great idea.
Russel Lolacher: So what does managing up look like tactfully when you’re in a meeting, when you’re having a one on one or you’re interacting with your boss, what does it tangibly look like to manage up?
Roberta Matuson: Well, I mean, what it looks like when you do it well is it looks like nothing is happening,
Russel Lolacher: Okay.
Roberta Matuson: Because you’ve, you’re kind of, you’re having a conversation, you’re, you’re having this conversation like you’re a peer. You know what your boss is expecting. So for example, if you have a boss who’s very bottom line, you don’t walk into their office and say, hey Bob, how was your weekend? How are the kids? You’re like Hey, Bob. How are you doing? Great. I have a question for you. Here’s my question. And you get to the point because that person is like, they don’t want all the chitchat. So, I mean, it looks different in different scenarios. So you would have to hand me a scenario and then I could better
Russel Lolacher: Absolutely. I guess. I was reading a book recently called the Phoenix Project where it was very much about understanding how, new ways of working could be implemented. And I think one of the, one of the tactics they talked about and you brought it up really well here, which is going into your office and trying to understand their boss’s job.
Like just understand what is, what is your deliverables? What is you, what, what do you do that’s tied to the business goals? And then trying to figure out what your role is in allowing that to happen, to support that to happen. And that could be in any organization. Because at the end of the day, your boss has a boss who wants them to do things and deliver things tied to some strategic plan. But you still have to go in there and go, okay, how do I fit within that?
Roberta Matuson: I think that’s excellent advice.
Russel Lolacher: So what, what I’m sort of asking is, is from a managing up perspective, you’re in a, say you’re in a meeting and you’re with your boss and you’re with your boss’s boss and you’re hearing the large, the bigger executive lay out their plans for say the next quarter. And this is what I want delivered. It’s all the responsibility and accountability of your boss. And you’re just there as a fly on the wall to listen. What are you taking away from that meeting and what next steps are you doing?
Roberta Matuson: Well, if I were in that meeting, I’d be scanning for ideas like, oh, it sounds like they’re going to be opening an office in South America. My boss has no idea I’m fluent in Spanish. I’m going to go in when and I would love an international assignment. So after this meeting, I’m going to go in and chat with my boss and say this is really cool that we’re going to be going into South America.
When I was learning to speak Spanish, I learned how to speak it because I lived in Columbia for two years. Really? Yeah. That’s how I became fluent. Oh. So if you’re looking for somebody to get that office open, I’m all in. Right? Shamelessly promoting. Like, I’m all in. I, I can take that off your desk. You got anything you want translated, give it to me.
Russel Lolacher: Leaning into your strengths. Leaning into probably the background that they may not know about you, as well. Or if you know your team, well, you’re like, Oh, Sally over there is phenomenal at X, Y, and Z. She’d be amazing to help out for this. And it’s a great opportunity for them to get profile as well that they may not normally get either.
Roberta Matuson: Absolutely.
Russel Lolacher: What can you do to prepare? So I mean this in a, in an anticipatory way, how is there ways you can set yourself up in your own leadership to be more available, to be more helpful to your bosses? I don’t know if it’s the mental health thing, like the meditating or the salsa lessons, but, but, but is there any way you can set yourself up to be a little bit more ready to go in the, in the next opportunity for your boss?
Roberta Matuson: Well, the best way is to really be building that relationship now, right? And not waiting until there’s this opportunity and you really want it. So really starting to find out through observing, talking to people, having casual interactions with your boss, just finding out like, what’s, what’s stressing them out?
Are there things that you can take off of their plate? Like asking those questions. Hey, is there anything that you’re doing that, you might be able to give to me because I really want to learn and grow. And I have the ability to pick up things really quickly. So you’ve got to step up and I see too many people sit back and they’re like, Oh, I’m drowning. Like, and they don’t step up or when the boss is like, Oh, there’s a new project. And they just put their heads down.
Russel Lolacher: What would current Roberta say to new and shiny Roberta in her job that got her down this path? I mean, you had a boss that was very difficult. Very, very bullying. And yet you’re telling me that’s like, no, it’s on you to build that relationship with that horrible person. So what advice would you give yourself in that situation now?
Roberta Matuson: Well, for me and, and I, and I want to share this with you because I think this happens to a lot of people. My situation was the boss that I interviewed with was not the boss who eventually became my boss. My boss left the company like a month later, and believe it or not, I got together with that first boss and I laid it out to her and I said, I just want you to know what you left me with. Like I told her, she was like horrified. She felt so bad, but I didn’t care because she could have told me, I’m not going to be in this job. I’m leaving myself to relocate. But, I would just say to the other Roberta, listen, clearly this is not the culture for you. Okay. It’s not you. It’s her. Get the heck out of here. I mean, I would have told her a lot of those things, but then again, I would have said take copious notes because you’re going to write a book one day and you want to get those stories straight.
Russel Lolacher: So there is a line where you shouldn’t always have to manage up when it’s, when the relationship is untenable or…
Roberta Matuson: That’s like saying, you’re in an abusive marriage. You should go to counseling. You should try to figure out how to, how to make it work. No. Your partner should go to counseling because they’re the person who is abusive. So… I’m not one who sits here and says, Oh, you can fix things. I mean, there’s no way I could have fixed her. And, I’m grateful I haven’t seen her since.
Russel Lolacher: Is the role of managing up and because not every organization is very clear that, that is something a leader should do. Should and could do within the organization to lead their leaders to support, to help. It’s not an automatic. It’s not something that is, here’s your job description. There’s never a bullet that says, Oh, by the way. So, is there something that organization, a culture, hopefully a training culture, could be doing to make this a little bit more honest, aware, explicit.
Roberta Matuson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve, I’ve done a LinkedIn Learning course. I’m a, a LinkedIn Learning author. I’ve done a course on managing up. I mean, if you have access to LinkedIn learning, you can just search for managing up and you’ll be able to take the course. They can bring in speakers like myself. I do a lot of speaking both nationally and internationally.
They can train their employees on how to manage up. They can give them a copy of books like mine. I mean, there’s a lot of things they can do because you have to remember it’s remarkable to me that this topic is not taught in business school. It’s not taught in undergrad. And to me, it is like the most important topic you can learn. Most important skill you can master.
Russel Lolacher: And that’s why I’ve always, I don’t want to put the blame too much on leaders because they’re left without a lot of training and a lot of expectations being told to them around and it’s being left to them to either listen to podcasts like this or read books like yours or the, the organization doesn’t take a lot of accountability in helping leaders become better leaders. I’m obviously being a planning a pretty big blanket here, but it does happen. And I keep hearing it over and over again, the lack of support.
Roberta Matuson: Well, when I first came out of college, we had these things called management training programs. Like you go to work for like a big retailer and they had a management training program or a bank or whatever. Those things are gone and I’m not sure they’re ever coming back. And so today the onus really is on the individual.
I mean like you said, you need to be listening to podcasts, you need to be reading books, you need to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Like you need to educate yourself. Nobody’s going to come down with a magic wand and say, we’re going to go, excuse me, pay for your executive MBA at Harvard for, I don’t know, a quarter of a million dollars. I don’t know what it costs. They’re not going to do that. So you have to take it upon yourself to learn and get the, the training that you need to be a great leader.
Russel Lolacher: Well, thank you very much for this. Roberta, it gives a lot of sense that how important managing up is when a lot of people I think would be resistant to the idea where they’re feeling like they’re having to do other people’s work when really it’s about supporting and helping the larger team.
Roberta Matuson: And yourself!
Russel Lolacher: And is that the biggest misconception about managing up is that it is do, taking on other people’s work.
Roberta Matuson: No, I think it’s that that’s sucking up and I don’t want to suck up. I’m not a suck up I think that’s the biggest misconception and it’s not and it’s also I write about this in the book You know the whole issue on office politics and people are like, well, i’m not gonna play that game I don’t want to play and I’m like if you are in an organization whether it’s a non profit, a for profit, a family business There is politics going on and you have to play the game because if you don’t, you’re going to be decimated.
So, you know, you’ve got to learn how to play it. You can play it your own way. You don’t have to be, like what we see on reality TV. You can do it your own way, but you have to learn how to swiftly maneuver through the organization so you can get the resources that you need.
Russel Lolacher: There you go. And that is a key piece of this, that it’s relationships that will actually help you do your job easier and better and more supported. Thank you for this, Roberta. I’m going to wrap it up with the one question I also finish on my podcast with, which is what’s one simple action people can do right now to improve their relationships at work?
Roberta Matuson: I think the simplest action that they can do is to go to their boss and just say Hey, how would you like me to manage you? What do you need from me that I’m not giving you right now? Let’s talk about how we can work together more effectively as a team, you and I. They have to have those conversations.
Russel Lolacher: That is Roberta Matuson. She’s a keynote speaker, author, possibly up to eight or nine books by the time this episode ends, executive coach and the president of Matuson Consulting, thank you so much for being here, Roberta.
Roberta Matuson: Oh, my pleasure. And if anyone wants to connect with me, they can go to my website at matchesinconsulting. com or send me an invite on LinkedIn and just mention the podcast so I know where you’re coming from.
Russel Lolacher: All that will be in the show notes so people can easily connect to you. Thank you so much for that.
Roberta Matuson: Great. Thank you.
