How to Manage Up So Your Boss Removes Obstacles Not Adds Them

Think about how your managers bring you work. Some arrive at your door asking you to make the call, set the direction, and resolve the ambiguity. Others arrive with a proposed way forward and a simple question: any red flags before I proceed?

The difference between those two habits is the difference between a management layer that adds to your load and one that removes it. And most GMs are unintentionally training the first kind.

The Pattern That Makes You the Bottleneck

When a manager waits for you to give a clear brief before they move, every ambiguous project routes through you. You become the clarity department for the whole business. It feels like being in control. It is actually a cap on how fast your organisation can move, because nothing progresses faster than you can personally get to it.

The manager is not being lazy. They have usually learned that this is what you want. If asking you first is always safe, and moving without you sometimes gets corrected, a sensible person asks first every time.

What Good Looks Like

The managers who help you most do not seek clarity. They propose it. Instead of "can we discuss the project parameters?" they come with a position:

"Based on our market position and the goals we agreed, I plan to focus on revenue growth over cost reduction, target a third-quarter launch to get ahead of competitors, and pilot with our top customers first. Unless you see a red flag, I will move forward on that basis."

One version adds to your mental load and waits. The other reduces it and moves. The second manager still gives you the chance to steer, but the default is progress, not a queue outside your office.

The same principle applies to how managers communicate upward in writing. Most weekly updates are a list of activities. The best ones are a short account of impact, direction and what is needed to keep moving. The format of the update signals whether someone is thinking like an operator or like a leader.

How Managers Should Communicate Up, Not Just Act Up

Consider two versions of the same week's work.

The activity version

• Completed team training
• Finished Q3 reports
• Met with Client X

The impact version

• Team training completed. Already seeing faster client issue resolution. This frees senior people to focus on the growth work we discussed.
• Q3 analysis revealed a revenue leak through process gaps. The team is implementing fixes.
• Client X meeting uncovered supply chain challenges. Connected them with our logistics team, which has opened a conversation about expanding the partnership.

The first update says "I'm busy." The second says "I'm moving the business forward."

Same activities. Entirely different impression of the person sending them.

When you are coaching your managers to propose rather than ask, coach them to communicate the same way. A useful structure is to ask them to cover three things: what moved forward and what it changed, what they are focused on next and why it matters, and what decision or support they need from you and what it will unlock. That last item is where managing up becomes genuinely useful. A manager who says "I need a decision on X so that Y does not stall" is doing your job of removing obstacles, not adding to your inbox.

A simple test for any update

Ask your managers to look at each item in their update and answer:

• What tangible change did this create?
• Who is better off and how?
• What problem did this prevent?
• What new opportunity did this open?

If they cannot answer those questions, they are reporting activity, not impact. That is worth a short conversation, because the habit of thinking in impact terms is the same habit that produces well-reasoned proposals rather than requests for direction.

How to Grow More of It

You get more of this by rewarding it and less of it by rescuing. When a manager brings you a decision they could have proposed, resist solving it. Ask what they would do, and why. When they bring you a well-reasoned proposal, back it, even if it is not exactly how you would have done it. People take ownership when ownership is safe.

Then make it explicit. Tell your managers you would rather see a considered proposal with a couple of assumptions than a request for a briefing. Tell them that being slightly bold and mostly right is worth more to you than being cautious and always waiting.

You can apply the same logic to how they report to you. Ask them to stop listing what they have done and start showing what shifted, what is next, and what they need from you to keep moving. You will quickly see who is focused on impact and value, and who is occupied with activity.

Do this consistently and the flow of small decisions upward slows to the ones that genuinely need you. That is decision velocity across your whole layer, and hours back in your own week. Here is how I build this with management teams.

If this sounds like your week

Your managers are not the problem. They are where the problem is stuck.

When your last leadership spend was signed off, did anyone go back to those managers' bosses and ask what changed? That question is the JBL Outcome Standard, and it is how I work.

• Find the friction. A short diagnostic that shows which decisions are stalling, and at what level.
• Am I the bottleneck? Ten questions on where your week is actually going.
• How I work with GMs. Six weeks, one hour a week, up to twelve of your managers, scored by their own bosses.
• Beat Burnout, Boost Performance. The book.
• The High Performance Leader podcast.

Managers I work with reclaim around four hours a week, and their bosses score the change 8.75 out of 10. Would it be a crazy idea to find out how we did this? Book a scoping call.