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You know your business needs to change, but you’re caught in the emotional and relational dynamics that are holding you back. Welcome to Noble Metal, the podcast that helps you forge a new kind of leadership. Host Phillip Weiss, a seasoned executive coach and organizational consultant, reveals how to become a more resilient, deliberate, and less-anxious leader.
Through powerful insights based on Bowen Theory and systems thinking, you’ll learn to navigate complex workplace relationships, manage challenging strategic issues, and lead your team to sustainable change. Get the clarity and tools you need to forge a new path for your business.
Ep17
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[00:00:00]
Phillip Weiss: . Welcome to Noble Metal. This is the second episode in what really is a four-part series about leading. This is about the sometimes challenging work of relating to people above, beside, and below us. In the last episode, I laid the groundwork for what I and some others refer to as relationship quality.
What are those [00:01:00] characteristics of a successful relationship, kind of broadly speaking? But in these next three episodes, including today, I wanna look at leading from three different perspectives. First is leading up, your boss and even the people above your boss. Second, next episode or following this one, leading across, your peers and colleagues, something people really, I think, kind of discount.
Third, and the one we kind of tend to think about when-- most when we're talking about leadership, is leading down, your direct reports. Each episode draws on the same framework applied to a different direction, essentially on the org chart. As always, the framework or lens is Bowen family systems theory.
Phillip Weiss: That's really the, hinge pin of this podcast. As you know, this was developed by a psychiatrist in uh, later last century, Bo-Murray Bowen, [00:02:00] from first Menninger Institute and then the National Institute of Mental Health, and then finally Georgetown University, where he established the Family Center.
What makes Bowen theory so useful for organizations is that Bowen recognized something most leadership models tend to ignore, that we are not just individuals. We're not just rational actors who happen to work near other people. We are actually organisms embedded in these powerful, very powerful relationship systems.
And those systems shape our behavior far more, I think, than we like to admit. So this episode, Leading Up, and let me be direct about the framing from the start, this is about you. Not your boss, but it's about how you, as a direct report, as a subordinate, show up deliberately and intentionally in your relationships with the people above you.
That's [00:03:00] the work for today This raises the first question worth sitting with, I think, which is what does it mean to lead when you're not the one in charge?
Why Hierarchy Matters
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Phillip Weiss: So I wanna start though first with something that cuts against really much or some anyway, contemporary thinking. And that is that I am a really firm believer in hierarchy.
So hierarchy has had a little bit of a bad rap-- reputation here, a bad rap. Flat organizations are fashionable in some circles, and especially a couple decades ago, there was a real push toward this. Self-managing teams have been celebrated at, for example, Zappos is a great example. In my opinion, hierarchy itself, that is the structure, isn't the challenge or the problem.
I mean, look, all we have to do is look at nature. Bees, for example, I think they are fascinating and I would love to raise them. There's a great book out there called [00:04:00] "The Wisdom of Bees." It's about leadership from a guy named Michael O'Malley. I recommend it. Take a look. But bees, wolf packs, lion prides termite colonies, I could just go on and on.
Every durable social organism has figured out a structure. Who leads, who follows, who guards the edges. Not because, in this case, bees, some bees are better than other bees, but because without structure, the colony's energy really would get consumed by chaos and figuring out who decides what. And honestly, in my, limited scientific knowledge, no bee has ever thrived in a flat hive structure.
And human organizations are, are really no different. Governments, militaries, hospitals, churches, great companies, they all have hierarchies. And the organizations that try to eliminate these, at the end of the day, they really don't eliminate it. They just make it more informal, [00:05:00] invisible, and, and probably to some extent, unaccountable.
The hierarchy is still there. So people have bosses. Employees have, have bosses and managers. Children have parents. That's not a design flaw. It is-- the design. And here's where it gets, I think, a little bit interesting. Most conversations about hierarchy focus entirely on the person at the top.
What does good leadership look like? And that's-- it's an interesting and always gonna be a valid study But what we almost never ask is maybe the more challenging question sometimes, which is: What is the responsibility of the person who's looking up? What does it look like, in a sense, to lead from below?
Phillip Weiss: That's our question today.
Managing Up vs Sucking Up
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Phillip Weiss: But before we go any further, I want to name something that's probably already forming in your head because it's, it came to mind immediately as I started thinking about this topic. [00:06:00] When somebody says they're going to manage up or that so-and-so is managing up, there's kind of a reflexive response in a lot of us.
oh, you mean they're sucking up. You mean they're gonna play politics, or you mean they're gonna tell their boss what they want to hear and maneuver their way into the, into their boss's good graces. And so that's a valid reaction because it's pointing at something very real. There's a version of managing up that is purely performative, and we've all seen it.
That employee who laughs the loudest at the boss's jokes, who mirrors the boss's opinions back to them, who times their compliments, you know, for maximum effect, you could say. This is a thing that happens. Again, you've seen it. You've sat next to it in conference rooms a- and probably spent the whole meeting kind of rolling your eyes in disbelief But here's a Bowen angle on this, and it's-- and I think it's really clarifying and and intriguing to me.
What most [00:07:00] people call sucking up is actually a textbook example of low differentiation Specifically, it's the togetherness pole. It's the fusion pattern dressed up in professional clothing. The sycophant in this case has lost their own perspective. Their opinions are tracking the boss's opinions. Their emotional state tracks the boss's mood.
Their sense of worth rises and falls with the boss's approval. For them, it might actually feel like a strategy, but it's actually most likely, I, I, I wonder if it's a form of anxiety management So in that sense, it's really not managing up. It's, it's, I think it's losing one's self to the togetherness pole to please, to be seen, to be like- and maybe to be rewarded Here's the practical problem with it, though.
Phillip Weiss: A fused subordinate is not actually helpful to a [00:08:00] good boss. They're simply an echo chamber. They're a yes machine. What most effective leaders, I think, actually want, even if they don't know how to articulate it, is someone who will tell them something true. Somebody who will push back with intelligence and good intent.
Somebody whose agreement actually means something because their disagreement is also out there on the table. I mentioned this in the last episode with Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Great examples of this.
What I'm talking about here is that leading upwards requires differentiation. It means bringing your actual perspective into a relationship with someone who has authority over you while still respecting that authority. The goal is not to make your boss like you. I-- That-- At least that's my take. The goal is to be genuinely useful to the work, to the person leading it, and [00:09:00] to the organization.
Phillip Weiss: My take is that distinction changes everything about how you show up. I was thinking about it, and I would say that at least 50% of the coaching conversations that I have with clients are about the boss, and, and that's even as recent as today.
Differentiation With Bosses
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Phillip Weiss: So what do I actually owe my boss? Not in a compliance sense, not what am I legally or contractually obligated to deliver, But as somebody who wants to be a genuine, useful participant in this relationship and in this organization, what's my responsibility?
The obvious answers, I think, come quickly. We need to be competent. We need to follow through, have integrity, honest reporting of what's happening on the ground, reasonable responsiveness. These are kind of the basic entry points, I think, that we would most likely all agree with. But I [00:10:00] think there's a deeper answer, and it runs through the concept of differentiation of self.
Differentiation is not independence. It's not being difficult for the sake of it. It's not being contrarian necessarily or emotionally detached, but it's the capacity to remain genuinely connected to these important people in your professional life and beyond, while still thinking for yourself. Still being able to say what you actually observe or believe, even when the people around you want to say something different or are saying something different.
Still holding a position under pressure without getting defensive or collapsing So low differentiation in an upward relationship might look like this. You feel what your boss feels. If she's anxious, you're anxious. If she's angry, you're either-- you either capitulate or you fight back. You agree in the meeting and complain in the parking garage.
Phillip Weiss: You [00:11:00] stop bringing real information because the emotional cost of being the bearer of bad news is too high Higher differentiation might look this. You can stay curious when your boss is reactive. That word curious is a very powerful one. A lot to be said around it, but being genuinely interested in the fact of your boss' facts, I should say, of your boss' thinking and reacting.
What's going on here? Additionally, high differentiation, you can hold a position under pressure without needing to win You can disagree thoughtfully, respectfully, but pointedly, and let your boss, in this case, have their reaction without it threatening your sense of self or your commitment to that relationship or the organization.
You stay engaged even when it's uncomfortable because you're not running from the relationship and you're not fusing with it. That separate but connected concept that we talk about a [00:12:00] lot. Powerful concept, in my opinion. And practically speaking, I think a more differentiated direct report is a genuinely more valuable one.
You're the person your boss can actually trust to tell them what's real. And let's be honest, that's rare, and it's worth more, I think, than most people realize.
Story Rachel Pushback
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Phillip Weiss: So let's take a look at what this actually might look like in practice with a couple of stories So we have Rachel, a mid-level manager who's been working at a regional healthcare system.
it's one of those organizations that has grown quickly through acquisitions and now trying to function as a coherent whole. We're seeing this a lot in the United States. Her boss, the VP of operations, we'll call him Greg brilliant in the conference room.
He's visionary, articulate, politically astute. [00:13:00] He could walk into a board meeting and make everything sound like it was under control. The problem here is, though, that Greg's timelines are fiction. He'll commit to team deliverables in one meeting that had no relationship to actual organizational capacity.
They don't have the resources. New initiative? Sure, we can pull it off by the end of the month. System migration? Yeah, we'll run parallel to the quarterly close. Staff development program? For sure, yes. Let's launch it during our busiest season. So Ra-Rachel's team was exhausted. Turnover was, in play.
The quality of the work was declining, not because people didn't care, but because they were trying to do eight things at once, all of them urgent, and none of them quite finished The old playbook for most people in Rachel's position would have been one, I think at least of two things. Either go along to get along and quietly absorb the damage, work the weekends, let the team burn out, smile in the meetings, [00:14:00] or go around Greg to his boss or to HR and register a complaint Now that the latter option of going elsewhere to boss and HR have their moments and their place.
But in this case, Rachel did neither. She asked for a one-on-one with Greg and came prepared. She didn't come with grievances, she came with data. She'd mapped the current initiatives, all eleven of them, against her team's actual capacity with realistic timelines. She laid it out calmly. "Greg, here's what we've committed to.
Here's what we can actually deliver well. Here's the gap. I need your help deciding what matters most." Greg's first response was essentially, "Hey, figure it out. That's what I pay you for." But Rachel stayed with it. She said, "I, I, I understand. I get it, and I want to be straight with you. If we try to do all of this at the current pace, we're gonna deliver most of it poorly.
I'd rather have a harder conversation now than a harder one six months from [00:15:00] now when we've missed some things that really matter." So Greg didn't become a different person. He was still unrealistic in his next board meeting, but something began to shift in how he worked with Rachel specifically. He started running his commitments past her before he made them publicly, not always, but often enough, because she had made herself the person in the room who would tell him something true.
Not to embarrass him, not to undermine him, but because the work required it. She led upwards, not by maneuvering around Greg, not by going over him, but by staying in relationship with him as a thinking adult with data and clear position and the steadiness to hold it when he pushed back think this is a pretty darn good example of defining oneself in a professional setting.
But let me reor- reorient the story just here a little bit and briefly. What if Greg didn't change at all? What if he kept doing the [00:16:00] same old thing? Were Rachel's actions with him for nothing? I mean, what-- seriously, what do you think? And I would love to be having a live dialogue on this. My first thought is we can't change o-other people, and we don't make these kinds of moves or take these stands in order to change others.
So when Rachel makes her moves, for sure, there's the hope that Greg will change, but he might not. A key here is that Rachel is making these moves for herself, first and foremost, because she believes it's the right and best thing to do for herself, for Greg, and the organization. Changing Greg isn't the point.
Phillip Weiss: Defining herself in this context with Greg is the point. So then if, if that's all she has done, then I would say good job. She's put herself and her best thinking out there, and what Greg does [00:17:00] with it is up to him. Easy to say, I get it. Hard to do, but I think that's a key point.
Story Marcus Absent Boss
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Phillip Weiss: Now, let's take a look at a different kind of difficult boss. A man I will call Marcus, a senior analyst at a financial services firm whose boss, a managing director, Ellen, was for all practical purposes absent, gone. Ellen wasn't hostile. She wasn't demanding. She was just simply never there. She traveled constantly, was perpetually in meetings when she was in the office.
She never met regularly with her direct reports. And PS, some-- at some point, I wanna do an episode on kind of meeting cadence with directs, another topic, but she never had them. Marcus never knew where he stood. He didn't know if his work was good or not. She-- He didn't know what she thought. He didn't even know if his projects were priorities for her. For a lot of people in that situation, and I've seen it more [00:18:00] than I kind of would ever think in, in the coaching space, but for a lot of people in that situation, the natural response is just distance.
Phillip Weiss: You stop trying to get through or you stop asking for. You basically write, write them off because the effort of asking and getting nothing back is really kind of demoralizing. You put your head down, you do your work, and psychologically check out of the relationship, which is, in Bowen's terms, emotional cutoff, and it's understandable, and probably makes the situation worse.
So in this case, Marcus tried something different. He stopped waiting for Ellen to show up and started creating the conditions for the relationship he needed, I'll say. He began sending her a weekly one-paragraph update, not asking for anything, not flagging problems, just keeping her informed of where things stood.
He made it easy, in a sense, for her to be minimally [00:19:00] engaged. He asked for a standing 15-minute check-in, and he came to those meetings with a short agenda and clear questions. He made it almost, you know, in a way, he made it almost impossible for her to leave without having actually engaged.
He also got honest with himself about what Ellen could and couldn't give him.
She was not gonna be his mentor. She was not going to be his champion in the way he would hope. But she had access and credibility in the organization that he needed. So he stopped expecting the relationship to be what it wasn't and started using it for what it actually was, and he started doing what he could.
He started making the moves that he could, and it was up to Ellen to respond
Within a year, Marcus had been recommended for a, a high visibility project by Ellen, actually. Not because she had transformed, but because Marcus had made himself, in this [00:20:00] case, just a bit more visible, consistent, and low-maintenance in a way that made him easy to advocate for. He didn't get the boss he wanted, but he led the relationship that he had. He took what he had and managed it, I think in this case, as well as he could. I would say in this case, that is a form of successfully leading upwards
Why This Work Matters
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So as we move kind of toward a conclusion here, you, you might be wondering, why go through all this trouble? Why think this carefully about a relationship with my boss? Why not just do my job and keep my head down and let the relationship be whatever it is?
Two reasons I think to consider. First, I think your relationship with your boss is probably the one of the highest leverage relationships in your professional life. Others matter, too, but this, for obvious reasons, is key. And the research is consistent. People don't [00:21:00] leave companies, they leave bosses. They quit their boss. The quality of the relationship between a direct report and their leader is one of the strongest predictors of engagement, performance, career trajectory, and longevity.
So how you show up in that relationship matters. Second, the patterns you carry into your upward relationship don't stay typically in one place. The way you manage anxiety with a difficult boss is probably the way you're managing anxiety with authority in general.
The over-functioner at work is often probably the over-functioner everywhere. The person who cuts off from an unavailable boss is often the person who cuts off from unavailable people elsewhere in their lives. My take on Bowen's thinking here, and I find this compelling, is that a person's level of differentiation is essentially consistent across all their major [00:22:00] relationships, which means doing this work in your professional relationships builds a capacity that might go beyond them. Getting more differentiated with your boss is not just a career, a career strategy.
It might actually be a growth strategy as well. And of course, Bowen's key emphasis is always on the work of differentiation in our families. That's the hardest, most intense, but most likely the most fruitful The last thing I wanna say, I wanna, I wanna say one more thing. Key point here. Is that work is about enjoyment.
We want to enjoy you know, getting in our car or where however we commute to work or getting on Zoom, whatever the case might be. We want to enjoy it. A working relationship with a boss where you can be honest, where there's genuine mutual respect, where your real thinking is welcome, that [00:23:00] is meaningful.
it's very rewarding and something, to work toward.
Three Reflection Questions
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It's worth cultivating deliberately So as we come to an end I wanna challenge you with three questions as you think about your upward relationships First, what do I actually want from this relationship?
What goals do I have for this relationship? That is increasingly a question that I'm asking clients. What goals do you have for this particular relationship? What do you want it to look like? What do you want the outcome of it to be? Not what I wish the other person would do differently, but I want-- what I want this to function like, feel like.
Another way of phrasing it, what would success look like a year from now with this relationship? M-many of us have complaints about those upward relationships. Far few of us [00:24:00] have ever articulated a clear picture of what we're hoping for. And so name that picture. Secondly, what are my patterns in this relationship?
When this person gets reactive or difficult, what do I do? Do I go quiet? Do I escalate? Do I go tell somebody else about it? Do I take on their work to compensate for their gaps? Do I check out? Which of those five relationship patterns or what combination of them most re-reliably show up for you in this?
Third and lastly, what would it look like to be slightly more differentiated with this person this week? Not perfectly differentiated. We know that's the work of a lifetime. But just one small move, one conversation you've been routing around with somebody else rather than the boss. One piece of your real assessment you've been withholding.
One moment of staying engaged rather than distancing. One instance of letting the boss own their own [00:25:00] problem that rather than solving it for them. Small, consistent moves. That's what we're talking about here. That's how relationship systems change.
Final Reframe
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A final thought. There is a tendency in management culture to locate the problem in the boss.
The boss who micromanages, the boss who disappears, the boss who takes credit and deflects blame, the boss who expects you to draw from resources that you don't even have, the boss who sets impossible expectation and then acts surprised when they're not met. And in all fairness, those are real issues, and that accounting is probably accurate.
Some of these bosses can be really, really hard. But Bowen invites us to a different question. Not what is wrong with my boss, but who am I choosing to be in relationship to them right [00:26:00] now in this situation? What choices do I actually have here? Not about changing them, but about showing up more fully as a thinking, functioning professional with a real perspective and the capacity to stay in that relationship even when it's hard That shift from focusing on what they're doing wrong to focusing on who I am choosing to be is probably one of the most quietly powerful moves available in any professional or other relationship.
It doesn't require the boss to change first. It doesn't require ideal conditions. It really just requires a decision to engage more deliberately with a relationship that really matters. And in this, in this case, that is, I think, leading up.
Next episode, Leading Across. Look forward to your joining us, where we talk about peers and colleagues, navigating with peers and colleagues. I think [00:27:00] this is one of the most underestimated relationship dynamics in the workplace, and I look forward to thinking through that with you Thank you for listening.
If you have found this useful, please refer us and please make any comments. We look forward to those. And until next time, thank you.