You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review.
I'm Amy Gallo.
Everyone reports to someone.
And managing up is how we proactively build a productive,
mutually beneficial relationship with our boss, whether that person is a VP or the CFO.
It's the effort we put into understanding their priorities.
It's the way we tailor updates and feedback.
It's balancing their needs with ours.
It's a mix of skills you keep honing
because managing up isn't something you ever really finish.
Thankfully, in executive coach Melody Wilding's new book,
she breaks the work of navigating your relationship with your boss into 10 conversations.
Her book's called Managing Up, How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge.
In it, she prepares us for conversations about boundaries,
about visibility, about advancement, about money.
Before those, though, she strongly recommends having two foundational conversations,
one about alignment and one about styles.
Very simply put, the alignment conversation is creating clear expectations,
getting on the same page with your manager about what success looks like.
If the alignment conversation is about what?