5 ways to get what you need at work without a title change

Melody Wilding is a professor of human behavior at Hunter College and was recently named one of Insider’s “most innovative career coaches.” Her background as a therapist and emotions researcher informs her unique approach, weaving evidence-based neuroscience and psychology with professional development. She is the author of Trust Yourself.

What’s the big idea?

Do you feel stuck navigating office politics, micromanagement, or being overlooked at work? In Managing Up, human behavior professor and executive coach Melody Wilding reveals how to subtly teach those above you to respect your ideas—without needing a title change. Through real-life stories and research-backed strategies, she breaks down 10 key conversations that help you build influence, set boundaries, and operate from a position of power. Packed with actionable scripts and expert insights, this book is a must-read for anyone ready to take control of their career.

Below, Melody shares five key insights from her new book, Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge. Listen to the audio version—read by Melody herself—in the Next Big Idea App.

1. Managing up is not about making your boss’s life easier. It’s about taking control of your own work experience.

We often equate managing up with sucking up—knowing your boss’s coffee order, agreeing with everything they say, jumping at their urgent requests. Turning yourself into a professional yes-person may have been enough to get ahead 10 or 20 years ago, but things have changed. We’re working in a world of hybrid teams, instant messaging, and four generations collaborating side by side. Your leader might be younger than you, expertise matters more than hierarchy, and “face time” happens through Zoom.

In this new reality, you need to get buy-in for your ideas even when budgets are tight, and to have strong boundaries when yet another task is dumped on your plate. Let’s face it: There will always be managers who are scattered, conflict-avoidant, or terrible at giving feedback. But when you master managing up, you’re no longer at the mercy of their limitations.

This is why managing up is NOT about your boss at all. It’s about you doing your best work and securing the resources, opportunities, and recognition you deserve. Your career growth and peace of mind at work depend not only on how you perform your responsibilities but also on how effectively you advocate for yourself, influence decision-makers, and design the conditions for your success.

The moment you shift from “How can I please my boss, how can I stay in their good graces?” to “How can I partner with my boss to achieve my goals and theirs?” new possibilities open. By stepping out of the “order taker” role and into a “respected advisor” mindset, you’re leveling the playing field.

2. There’s a method to managing up.

If you’ve been told that you need to get better at influencing upward, then you’ve probably received some of this advice: Come with solutions, not problems! Build trust with leadership! Anticipate their needs! Make them look good! Be proactive!

These pithy one-liners sound good but tend to be oversimplified and fall apart the minute things get complicated or don’t go as planned. Which, if we’re honest, might be often. You don’t have time to duct tape and shoestring scattered strategies together . . . and it’s not going to work for long.

“When you master managing up, you’re no longer at the mercy of their limitations.”

That’s precisely why I developed the 10 conversations framework—to give you a comprehensive, systematic road map to master the skill of managing up, where each step conversations build on the next.

When I say conversations, this includes the overlooked opportunities and interactions we have every day to shape our leaders’ perception of us, like those two minutes before everyone else joins the meeting when it’s just you and the VP making small talk.

The book begins with the most foundational conversations:

• Alignment: How do I know which tasks are most crucial to focus on?
• Styles: How can I work with different personalities?
• Ownership: What can I do to present—and go after—my ideas without overstepping?
• Boundaries: What do I say when my manager dumps yet another task on my plate?
• Feedback: How do I voice my opinion and deliver criticism up the chain of command?

These conversations give way to more advanced ones later in the book—networking, visibility, advancement, money, and eventually even the quitting conversation.

3. Psychology is your secret advantage.

You know those moments that make you want to pull your hair out? Your boss needs three meetings to make a decision that feels obvious. Your brilliant idea gets shot down because you “didn’t build enough consensus.” Your promotion gets delayed despite your team’s record-breaking quarter.

It’s tempting to throw your hands up. To label your boss as “difficult.” To take it personally. But here’s what my career as a researcher and coach has taught me: When we say someone is “difficult,” what we often mean is they’re different:

• They process information differently than we do.
• They make decisions in a way that feels foreign to us.
• They have pressures and priorities we can’t see.

Until you understand what actually drives decisions at the top—the hidden incentives, the competing agendas, the unspoken fears—you’re just throwing tactics at the wall and hoping something sticks. Every strategy in this book is grounded in the science of persuasion, trust-building, and more. As you rise in your career, how you handle the people dynamics around you gives you an edge:

• Instead of getting frustrated that your big-picture boss cares about the details, you lead with the vision.
• Instead of feeling dismissed when your risk-averse leader seems resistant, you address their concerns before they voice them.
• Instead of getting frustrated when an action-oriented executive shoots down ideas mid-sentence, you lead with the bottom line and save the context for follow-up.

4. Go beyond your boss.

Think about your last major project. You probably had to coordinate with stakeholders across three different departments. Your resources might be controlled by someone you’ve never met. That promotion you want? It’s likely being decided by a committee. The truth is, your boss might be your biggest advocate, but they’re just one voice in a chorus of decision-makers shaping your career.

I see this reality check hit hard when people come to me frustrated: “I don’t get it. My boss loves me. So why do I keep getting passed over?” Nine times out of ten, it’s because they’ve invested everything in that one relationship while ignoring the broader network of senior leaders who influence their success. Today’s workplaces are a complex web of dotted lines, matrix reporting, and cross-functional teams.

When it comes to internal networking, focus on connecting with three groups: decision-makers who control resources and opportunities, power peers who are rising stars across the organization, and behind-the-scenes operators who make everything actually happen (assistants, HR, IT).

“Before you can ask for career sponsorship or resources, ask for information.”

Use what I call the “info-ask” strategy. Before you can ask for career sponsorship or resources, ask for information. Maybe it’s best practices from that VP whose project you want to join, insights into how approvals really happen from that senior director, or vendor recommendations from that influential peer. This approach does three powerful things: it signals respect for others’ expertise, demonstrates a genuine desire to learn (not just take), and creates natural follow-up opportunities to share how their advice helped.

5. You teach people how to treat you in the workplace.

It’s easy to feel powerless at work. The latest reorg shifted your role. Your team’s headcount got frozen. Your skip-level keeps scheduling over your focus time. During the past few years, the number of professionals who believe they have little to no control over their careers, futures, and work relationships has doubled. A staggering 40% of workers grapple with a sense of helplessness.

But here’s what most people miss: Every interaction is a chance to subtly shape how others treat you.

When your boss dumps a last-minute project on your team, you have a choice. You could just say yes (and reinforce that your time doesn’t matter), or you could say, “I can take this on, but it means pushing back the Q2 planning work we discussed. Which would you prefer I prioritize?” This simple trade-off shows you’re strategic, not just accommodating.

When an executive criticizes your work in front of the team, you could stay quiet (teaching them this behavior is acceptable), or you could say, “Could we discuss these concerns one-on-one? It would help me better understand your expectations.” This shows you’re professional while setting a clear boundary about how you expect feedback to be delivered. You have more power than you realize to shape the dynamics around you.

This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.