Leading Up

I just read Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win by Michael Useem. This book uses real life inspiring examples on leading up to your boss as well as learning to allow subordinates to lead up to you.

Here are some of the lessons he draws from the illustrious stories in the book. These are not all the lessons drawn, but the ones that I hope to keep in mind.

Disdain and contempt for your superior will be returned in kind, thus shortening your leash and limiting your assets. Petty quarrels with your boss will similarly damage your name and invite greater oversight and fewer resources. p20
Building your superiors' confidence in you requires giving them your confidence. Once you and they have established it both ways, your organization may have an unbeatable competitive advantage, whatever the battlefield. p25
Withholding vital information from above is sure to make your superior's job far more difficult and damage his or her trust in you, making your own job far more difficult as well. p28
A bias for action is what your superior wants. Show initiative, and you'll lay the foundation for confidence and support from above; without it, your boss will soon search for others who are more willing to take charge. p31
Strategy requires an accurate comparative appraisal of your competitor's strengths and your own. Skewed assessments are more likely to fool you in the long run than anyone else, and they are sure to undermine your superior's confidence in you and responsiveness to you. p35
The vital bond between commander and commander in chief, between manager and executive, is an enduring and enriched relationship. For that, an open flow of information and an open display of respect are essential. Without long-term rapport and mutual exchange, you will receive little more from above. p37
Learning all the ropes and finding the right venue are essential to the exercise of upward leadership, and you are the only one who can direct the learning and do the finding. p48
Battling your boss is a losing proposition - especially if it becomes a public spectacle. Learning to question your boss behind closed doors, by contrast, will get your ideas into the room and keep power struggles out of it. Private criticism couples with public support will ensure that your voice is heard, your superior finally gets it, and the company is better for it. p53
Risk taking is a defining element of any leadership, and calculated management of it is essential. To succeed as a risk taker on behalf of those above you, decisions need to be arrived at both quickly and accurately, and despite the grave uncertainties and large stakes that may be involved, if they are yours to take, it is essential for you to make them rather than kick them upstairs. p60
The first step in winning the support of the boss and board is to make sure your plan is thoroughly analyzed and fully developed. The second is to communicate carefully why the proposed course of action is necessary for the organization and how it can be accomplished with the minimum upheaval to process and employees. p65
Persistence often pays, but it requires an extra willingness to stay a rocky path when you have persuaded those above and below you to embrace the course. p72
If your superiors need to appreciate a grave threat to the institution but are simply not getting it, you may find it essential to transcend the normal channels of communication to drive home a message that they must come to appreciate. p88
For achieving an organizations' mission, communicating evolving conditions upward is essential, especially when they threaten what an organization stands for. The more credible the messenger, the more powerful the message, and the more redundant its delivery, the more likely the word is to get through. Close familiarity with the messenger's style and manner also can help superiors distinguish false information from the tru understandings they need. p91
When a subordinate's fearful forecast becomes terrible fact, it is surely past time to heed the warning and seek a solution, but it is never too late to act on appeals from those below when your actions can still make the difference. Upward leadership is a two-way street: your subordinates must render their best counsel, and you must seek to appreciate and then make good use of it. p94
Even if your superiors reject your appeals or offer little guidance, you must make your own decisions for achieving the organization's mission. The decisions must transcend the personal resentments that might otherwise get in the way of an unswerving focus on the ultimate aims of the enterprise. If your decisions serve the mission, they will ultimately serve your superiors as well, however shortsighted their perspectives may be at present. p97
When the risk is greatest to yourself and your organization, your only choice may be no choice at all. Steadfastly pursuing your mission in the face of personal danger and even organizational ignorance is sometimes both the sole course to be followed and the greatest service you can render. p102
When the stakes are high, the personal cost of attempting upward leadership but falling short can be traumatic, and coping with the consequent stress is one of the burdens that comes with the calling. p106
Due diligence is everything. Without detailed intelligence on the conditions the organization faces, senior people will be unable to make fast, accurate decisions in response to requests from below. p109
Clarifying your superiors' understanding of your situation and their intent for it is a first step for knowing what further measures are required to address the challenges in front of you and build support for them. p110
Large-scale developments ofen defy individual intervention, but not always, and when you see an opportunity to make the difference though your superiors still don't, your mission is to turn them around. p111
Redefining an institution's reality is one of the upward leader's greatest tests. Well-established worldviews are robustly resistant to erosion, let alone conversation; but the extraordinary difficulty of converting your superiors' definition of reality often suggests the overriding importance of achieving it. p113
Overconfidence in your governing board's confidence in you is sure to blind you to the moves you should be making to ensure you retain its trust. Poor profit performance and declining share price are enough for your directors to question their confidence, and that is when your upward work with them will become most critical. p130
Working well in- and outside the boardroom with your directors - especially your most powerful directors =- may not always make for the best management of the company, but it will almost always certainly make for good leadership with the board. p132
With a dozen or more directors, working with each and listening to all can be essential for assuring their abiding allegiance to you and averting any alliance with one another against you. p133
There's no better place to point your antennae than at what your subordinates are implying or communicating through other means. Because their stake in you is so large, they often appreciate you and your situation better than you do yourself. p157
For representing your operation's capabilities and requirements to your superior, there can be no substitute for frequent face-to-face discussion and debate. p163
When dealing with multiple independently ruling voices, it's best to face and serve each superior as if he or she is your only boss. p168
Downward leadership and upward leadership are integrally reinforccing; if you are effective at the first, it will beget the second; if you are adept at the second, it can inspire the first. p176
If you expect those below to support yoru leadership and step into the breach when needed, they will need to understand your strategy, your methods, and your rules. That requires repeated restatements of your principles and consistent adherence to them. p191
To ensure that your superior can institute a controversial policy that you have been asked to develop, make certain the policy is comprehensive, inclusive, and built on a foundation that is responsive to the genuine concerns of all major concerned parties. p224
The greater the gap between you and the superior you are seeking to lead, the more you need to be humble about your role, riveted on the welfare of those below, fully accepting of the responsibility you have accepted, and wholly cognizant of what is expected of you. p275
All institutions depend on a dynamic give-and-take among those at the top, middle, and the bottom. The success of any hierarchy depends on communication and flexibility across the vertical divides. p276

General Lee's 4 principles:

Keep your superiors well informed of what you have done, what you are doing, and what you plan to do
Regardless of how you feel about your superiors, display a respect for their positions
Avoid petty quarrels with your superiors in which you may be right but from which your reputation will suffer
Estimate your competitive advantage as precisely as possible, not only to avoid the twin dangers of overconfidence and overcautiousness, but also to sustain your superiors' confidence in your capacity for precise analysis. p39

My distractions

Leading Up

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