It has been called ‘managing up,’ self promotion, and some less flattering monikers.
It’s the ability to influence your own boss to invest in your ideas and advancement.
It’s a soft skill that can be mistaken, at best, for manipulation, but, at worst, for thriving on the fruits of others’ labor and covering one’s fanny.
Real managing up is supposed to be done not for personal reasons but for the benefit of the organization. But most often, it’s done for personal gain. It’s hard to do with dignity and without straining friendships.
You may believe that when you are doing a good job and accomplishing something, that your bosses will know. But Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University says your boss probably doesn’t realize how good you are.
Cialdini and Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Jerry Pfeffer co-authored a recent study that shows self-promotion may not work as well as it seems. Reported in the Wall Street Journal, the researchers found that self-aggrandizers don’t fool others as well as they fool themselves.
Their recommendation: You have to all but deputize someone as your campaign manager. The most savvy strategy, they found, is to have information about your accomplishments come to your boss from someone else.
When discussing ideas with your boss, point out that what you are recommending is logically consistent with a stand the boss and higher-ups are already taking.