Managing Up

This distills insights from 35 product leaders into practical managing up strategies. It pushes you toward proactive communication (weekly updates, bringing recommendations not just problems, starting exec conversations with strategy before details) and treats your manager as a resource to leverage rather than work around. The core advice is pragmatic: send "state of" emails, use structured formats like HPM (Highlight, People, Me), and understand priorities two levels up. What's useful here is the shift from abstract "communicate better" advice to concrete patterns like "say what you'll do, say you're doing it, say you did it" and knowing when to involve founders (high at strategy, high at quality, low in the middle). Most people under communicate upward then wonder why leadership feels out of touch.

Install to Claude Code

npx -y skills add refoundai/lenny-skills --skill managing-up --agent claude-code