Managing Up - Not Just for Juniors

I have encountered a few universal truths in my work coaching Investment Bankers - and this is one of them.

Everyone wants the levels below them to manage up better and few people are thinking about if they are managing up well themselves.

"Not being kept informed" is very high up on the pet peeve list of Investment Bankers. And this is true at every level - starting from Associates getting annoyed with their Analysts and continuing up to RMs getting annoyed with their VPs.

In my experience, if an RM tells me the Banker below them is a high performer, they are also telling me that this person keeps them well-informed on work streams and is a safe pair of hands. It is a 1:1 correlation between high performance and communicating upwards well.

When I think of this problem, I think of the subway alert system.

When the subway breaks down, I'm a lot more calm if every few minutes they come on the loud speaker to tell me what the problem is and how long they expect the delay to last. If they don't come on for 10 minutes and I have no idea what is going on or when it's going to be solved, I'm going to lose my patience. The same is true for communicating up in stressful situations - some people need that subway alert message more often that others. Find out what that is for your senior.