Feel Like You Have to Manage Your Boss? Read This.
If you are reading this title and nodding — this is for you.
Not the version of you that’s going to pretend everything is fine. The version of you that spent today carefully choosing your words, reading the room before you spoke, and figuring out how to get something done without triggering the person who’s supposed to be leading you.
That is exhausting. And it is also not your job.
But here you are. So let’s talk about it.
First — You’re Not Imagining It
Managing up is a real thing. It’s taught in leadership courses. It’s discussed in HR circles. There is a whole industry around helping employees navigate difficult managers, which tells you everything you need to know about how common this is.
But there is a difference between strategically managing up — communicating in the way your boss receives best, timing your asks, framing your feedback carefully — and what a lot of people are actually doing, which is managing around.
Managing around means you’ve stopped expecting your boss to lead effectively and started compensating for it. You’re running interference. You’re absorbing their anxiety so the team doesn’t have to. You’re translating their unclear direction into something the people around you can actually execute. You’re doing your job and a significant portion of theirs.
And you’re doing it without the title, the pay, or the acknowledgment.
Why You’re Doing It
Because you care. Because things falling apart is not something you can watch happen when you have the ability to prevent it. Because you are good at reading people and you have unconsciously made it your responsibility to manage everyone’s experience of the situation.
Because somewhere along the way you learned that keeping the peace was safer than naming the problem. And because you are probably very good at your job and very capable of filling the gaps — which means nobody has ever forced the issue because you’ve always made it work.
That’s the trap. You’re so good at compensating that the dysfunction never becomes visible enough to be addressed. And you pay the price for that invisibility every single day.
What This Is Actually Costing You
It’s costing you energy you were supposed to spend on your own growth. Every hour you spend managing your boss’s emotions, translating their unclear vision, or cleaning up behind their decisions is an hour you’re not spending on the things that would actually move your career or your goals forward.
It’s costing you clarity. When you spend enough time in a dynamic where you have to manage the person above you, you start to lose track of what good leadership even looks like. You normalize things that are not normal. You start to believe that this is just how it is.
It’s costing you your standard. Because every day you absorb what you shouldn’t have to absorb, you’re teaching yourself that your standard is negotiable. It’s not.
So What Do You Do
You get honest with yourself about what you’re actually dealing with. Not the diplomatic version — the real version. Is this a boss who is difficult but genuinely trying? Or is this a boss who is not equipped to lead and has no interest in becoming equipped? Those are two very different situations that require two very different responses.
If it’s the first — there may be a conversation worth having. Not to fix them, but to advocate for yourself. What you need to do your best work. How you need to receive direction. What isn’t working and what would work better. Some people genuinely don’t know and will adjust when told directly.
If it’s the second — you need a plan. Not a vague intention to eventually find something better. A real plan, with a real timeline, that takes you from where you are right now to somewhere that doesn’t require you to manage the person who’s supposed to be managing you.
Because here’s what I know after years of watching this play out: the situation rarely fixes itself. The boss rarely wakes up one day and becomes the leader you needed them to be. What changes is your decision about how long you’re willing to stay in it.
One Last Thing
The fact that you are good enough to manage your boss does not mean you should have to. Those are two completely different things and I need you to hold that distinction clearly.
Your capability is not an invitation for someone else’s dysfunction. Your adaptability is not a reason for the situation to remain unchanged. And your willingness to make things work is not the same as being okay with things staying exactly as they are.
You deserve to work somewhere that your energy goes into the work. Not into managing the room.
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