Something to readWorking with your manager
15 principles for managing up
A 12-minute essay on fifteen habits that make you easier to manage and easier to back
Why it’s worth your time
Wes Kao's 15 principles for managing up is a checklist you can try on your very next message to your manager. She argues that keeping your manager informed and making their decisions easier is how you earn room to do things your way, and that it never stops, even for founders.
Keeping your manager in the loop
The essay · 12 min · Free
How to get it
Opens their site. We don’t copy it here; we’d rather they get the read.
- Read the essay.
It's a numbered list, so it's easy to dip into. Watch for the before-and-after examples under almost every principle, and for her small loop for building trust.
- Close one loop out loud.
Pick one thing you've told your manager you'll do this week. Send one line when you start it and one when it's done, with anything they'd need to know. For example: Quick note, I've started the vendor comparison and should have it to you by Thursday.
Good moments for this: the week you take on something newwhen a project starts to slipin the first month with a new boss
Keep going with Truest
Small actions add up. Truest helps you find the next thing worth doing, make the space to do it, and keep a record of your progress. It’s a private place to work on your career, and it’s yours, not your employer’s.
- It actually happensWe’ll put it on your calendar and remind you before it starts.
- Lands in your closeoutFriday's closeout asks for progress, priorities, and proud moments; this is one.
- It’s yours to keepEach thing you do is saved to your private record, there when your next review or job search comes around.
Anything else we can help you with this week?
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Some like a line the moment work starts; others would rather get one note a week with everything in it, and Kao's loop can fit either as long as your manager hears when the work starts and when it's done.
What might make this harder
Put the two lines in something you already send, like a standup note or your 1:1 doc, instead of starting a new thread.
Questions people ask
What are Wes Kao's 15 principles for managing up?
Fifteen habits from a 2023 post on her newsletter, among them leading with the punchline, showing your thought process, flagging problems early with a suggested fix, keeping your manager in the loop, anticipating questions and being explicit about what you need. The last is to expect to manage up for the rest of your career.
What does managing up mean?
In Kao's definition, being someone who follows through, communicates well and pushes toward the business's goals, which raises both your real and perceived value. It's closer to making your manager's job easier than to flattering them.
Am I being micromanaged, or am I not communicating enough?
Kao suggests checking your own updates first: if your manager keeps having to chase you for information, closer oversight may be a response to that. Some managers really are micromanagers, and she says she has worked for a few.
What it says, and how it holds up
Your project can fill your week and still be a small slice of your manager's, next to other people's work, next quarter's plans and worries you never hear about. Wes Kao says she didn't grasp that until she managed people herself. Her case is that managing up means following through, keeping your manager informed and taking some of the decision load off them, so they can back you without chasing you.
One of the more useful pieces is her small loop for building trust, and the reason behind it: skipping the updates, she points out, leaves your manager with no way of knowing the work is handled, however well it's going. Bad news belongs in the loop too, raised at the first sign of trouble and not when it has become a red flag.
Kao coaches and teaches for a living, and ads for her paid course frame the fifteen principles; the post is also written with fast-moving startups in mind, and one aside suggests people who'd rather be told what to do would have joined a big, established company. Kao is plain that none of it works with a manager who doesn't have your interests at heart. Her answer there is to find a better place to work.
Closing loops tends to help less when your manager is checking in constantly because something has already gone wrong, say a missed deadline. Then a direct conversation about what happened, and what they need to see from you now, is likely to do more.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.