As a tech manager, your responsibilities don’t stop at leading your teamyou must also manage relationships above you in the hierarchy. This skill, often called “managing upward,” involves influencing your manager and leadership without direct authority, making it a delicate balancing act. Doing this well impacts not just your success but also the well-being and performance of your team.

Why Managing Upward Matters

Many new engineering managers focus exclusively on the team below them, forgetting that their role includes acting as a bridge to upper management and executives. Your ability to communicate, negotiate, and escalate issues clearly and diplomatically affects resource allocation, project priorities, and team morale.

• Protecting Your Team: Intervene when unrealistic demands come from above to prevent burnout.
• Gaining Support: Secure necessary funding, tools, and headcount through persuasive communication.
• Aligning Vision: Ensure that strategic directions from leadership are understood and well translated for your engineers.

How to Influence Leadership Without Authority

Influencing your manager and peers in leadership requires emotional intelligence and strategy:

• Speak Their Language: Executives often focus on business outcomes, timelines, and risks. Frame technical discussions around these priorities rather than detailed code considerations.
• Use Data and Stories: Combine metrics with concrete examples to make your case compelling and relatable. For example, “Our recent incident caused 3 hours of downtime, risking client churn.” This catches attention better than generalities.
• Be Solution-Oriented: Dont just present problems; come prepared with options and recommendations. Leadership values managers who can anticipate consequences and propose mitigations.
• Build Credibility Over Time: Consistently deliver on promises and follow up on commitments to earn your manager’s trust as a reliable partner.

Smart Escalation: When and How to Raise Issues

Not every problem needs to be escalated, and doing it poorly can damage your reputation or relationships. Consider these guidelines:

• Policy First: Try resolving challenges within your team or lateral peers before involving higher-ups.
• Urgency and Impact: Escalate when something threatens critical deadlines, significant resources, or team well-being.
• Frame Clearly: When escalating, clarify the issue, what youve done to address it, potential risks, and what decisions or support you need.
• Follow Up: Keep transparency about outcomes and next steps after escalation to maintain accountability.

Protecting Your Team From Unreasonable Demands

New managers often hesitate to push back on upper management directives, fearing conflict or jeopardizing their standing. However, shielding your engineers from burnout and unrealistic expectations is part of your role.

• Use Data to Advocate: Present facts on current velocity, quality issues, or morale to argue for realistic workloads.
• Prioritize Ruthlessly: Help leadership understand which initiatives deliver the highest value and which can be deferred without major harm.
• Offer Trade-offs: Show willingness to compromise, such as delaying a lower-priority project to meet a critical launch.
• Model Empathy and Calm: Stay composed and respectful during negotiations it gains respect and facilitates productive dialogue.

Translate Tech Speak Into Business Impact

One common pitfall for tech managers is communicating in overly technical jargon that loses leaderships attention. Instead, connect the dots between engineering tasks and broader company goals.

• Password security upgrade => protects customer data => avoids regulatory fines and reputational harm
• Refactoring legacy code => reduces bugs and downtime => increases customer satisfaction and retention
• Adding automated tests => faster release cycle => quicker time to market and competitive edge

Making these connections clear helps executives appreciate the value your team delivers beyond lines of code.

Tips for Building a Strong Partnership With Your Manager

• Regular Check-Ins: Establish a cadence to proactively update your manager on progress, challenges, and team health.
• Ask for Feedback: Show openness to improve your own leadership by inviting candid input.
• Clarify Expectations: Understand what your manager priorities and style of decision-making are to align communication accordingly.
• Be Transparent: Share both successes and setbacks honestly to build trust and collaboration.

Leveraging Tools and Frameworks

Using frameworks like RACI charts (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) can clarify roles and decision ownership when communicating upward. Tools such as Asana, Notion, or Jira keep data organized and accessible for quick status updates.

When feasible, prepare concise slide decks or executive summaries focusing on impact metrics and key asks before meetings. Tailoring your presentations to your audience increases your influence.

Ultimately, managing upward is an ongoing practice of diplomacy, strategic communication, and trust-building that shapes your leadership effectiveness and the trajectory of your engineering team.