Recently, I have had a number of conversations about managing relationships at work. Not surprisingly, when we talk about management, most people immediately think about managing the people who report to them. But that is only one direction. Most of us are constantly managing relationships up, down, and across an organization, and each direction asks something slightly different of us.
There is an old story about a man travelling with three horses. One pulled ahead, one lagged behind, and one kept drifting sideways off the road. A passerby watched him struggle and asked which horse was the problem. The man laughed and said, “None of them. My job is to pay attention to all three.” I like that story because it is not really about horses. It is about the mistake we make when we assume leadership only requires our attention in one direction.
Managing up is perhaps the most misunderstood. It is not about managing your manager, nor is it about politics, flattery, or positioning yourself favorably. Managing up is about making sure the person you report to has the information they need to do their job. If you see a risk, say so. If a priority is unclear, ask. If circumstances have changed, communicate that before a deadline is missed. Your manager cannot know what you have not told them, and waiting until something goes wrong to explain what you knew beforehand is not managing up.
Managing down is more familiar, but it also gets confused with control. A manager has a responsibility to establish priorities, create clarity, provide feedback, monitor progress, and hold people accountable. Sometimes that means stepping in more closely. I have no particular issue with micromanagement as a tool. There are situations where it is entirely appropriate: someone may be learning, performance may have slipped, the risk may be high, or the work may require very close attention. The problem comes when micromanagement becomes a style and every person, task, and circumstance is managed as though it requires the same degree of control.
Managing across is different again because formal authority often disappears. Your colleague in another department does not report to you, yet you may depend on one another to get the work done. This is where trust, credibility, communication, and sometimes a little patience become essential. Managing across also means being willing to have the conversation everyone else may be carefully avoiding. Artificial harmony may keep things pleasant, but it rarely solves much.
Perhaps the common thread in all three directions is responsibility. What do I need to communicate? What have I assumed rather than clarified? What information am I holding that someone else needs? What conversation am I postponing because it may be uncomfortable?
An organizational chart can tell us who reports to whom. It cannot tell us whether those relationships work. That part is up to us.