8 Ways to “Manage Up” — without Your Boss Knowing You’re Doing It

Beverly Flaxington

A Gallup poll (here’s the link) of more 1 million employed US workers showed that 17% of employee turnover is because of a bad boss or immediate supervisor. But the poll also concluded that 75% of all turnovers are influenced by managers — that is, a bad manager is often the tipping point in an employee’s decision to leave.

In my consulting and coaching work with employees, we spend far too much of our time working on “managing up” — helping employee deal with a difficult or incompetent boss. Oftentimes the boss has an unpleasant manner. The boss is a bully or a poor communicator. Sometimes the boss is disorganized and blames their employee as a result for any ensuing problems. Continue Reading