Something to readWorking with your manager
Managing your Manager
A 9-minute essay on taking charge of a strained relationship with your manager
Why it’s worth your time
Julie Zhuo's essay offers a practical way out of feeling stuck with a manager, because it starts from what you can change. It can help most if you've been waiting for your manager to fix things, or bracing for them to.
Fixing a strained relationship with your boss
The essay · 9 min · Free
Opens their site. We don’t copy it here; we’d rather they get the read.
- Read the essay.
Watch for the question she suggests asking your manager, which comes after her steps for a relationship that isn't working.
- Ask your manager how they define doing their job well.
Put it on the agenda for your next 1:1. Listen, ask one follow-up, then ask what doing your job well would look like to them, and say what would make the work feel successful to you.
You“I'd like to understand your role better. What tells you you're doing it well? And what would tell you I'm doing mine well?”
Good moments for this: before your next 1:1in the first weeks with a new managera month before reviews are due
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.
- How you work, written downTruest turns how you work into a page of your own.
- It’s yours to keepEach thing you do is saved to your private record, there when your next review or job search comes around.
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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 managers answer on the spot and others may want a day to think, so sending it ahead, or saying there's no rush, tends to get a more considered answer.
What might make this harder
Ask the question in writing and keep it to one line. A short written answer is still something you can come back to.
Questions people ask
What is Julie Zhuo's Managing your Manager about?
A 2024 issue of Zhuo's newsletter, The Looking Glass, arguing that you, not your manager, are the main character in your career. It gives seven steps for a strained relationship, a question about how your manager defines success, and tips for taking in a performance review.
How do I fix a bad relationship with my manager?
Agree first on what doing each job well means, then say specifically what help you want and check in on it regularly. If clear, repeated asks change nothing, Zhuo suggests going to your manager's manager, and in the end looking elsewhere.
Should I give my manager feedback?
Zhuo suggests doing it at least monthly, on how well they're helping with what you asked for, and asking for their feedback on you just as often.
What it says, and how it holds up
Julie Zhuo describes two common pictures of a boss: the one who might catch you out and axe you, and the one who'll fight your battles and win you a promotion. One runs on fear and the other on longing, and she wants both gone. Making your manager the main character of your career, she argues, gives your own power away. The imbalance is real, she grants, since a manager can promote or fire you far more easily than the reverse.
Her fix begins before any judgment of how either of you is doing. She sees a lot of friction coming from two quietly different ideas of the manager's job, the report expecting backing for their ideas and the manager believing the job is to push for better work, and that gap wears trust down a little at a time. So she'd have you ask how your manager sees success in their role, then in yours, then say what success would feel like to you, and build from where those meet. From the manager's side it's a rare question; she says the people who've asked her could be counted on one hand.
Managing the relationship from your side has a long history. John Gabarro and John Kotter's Harvard Business Review article Managing Your Boss (1980) argued that the relationship runs both ways, and that understanding your boss's goals and pressures is part of doing your own job well. The open part of the issue names two further chapters, on what to expect from a manager and how to give feedback about an underperforming one, which Zhuo marks for paid subscribers, though the post also offers a free way to read on. And if the strain with your manager involves something that might be discrimination, harassment or retaliation, a conversation about the relationship is the wrong tool; that's for HR or someone outside your reporting line.
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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.