Lead Up and Lead Down

You're Responsible to Your Boss and Your Team. What Happens When They Disagree?

One of the more complicated realities of management is that you have responsibilities in two directions.

Your boss expects you to understand organizational priorities, execute decisions, and deliver results.

Your employees expect you to understand their challenges, represent their interests, and help them succeed.

Both expectations are legitimate.

The difficulty comes when those interests appear to conflict.

Imagine your company announces a new customer-service policy designed to reduce operating costs. Under the new approach, employees will have less time to resolve customer issues, and certain requests will be redirected to an automated system.

Leadership believes the change will improve efficiency.

Your employees believe it will create more complaints, repeat contacts, and frustrated customers.

And you happen to agree that some of their concerns are valid.

Now what?

You're in a Position to See Both Sides

Managers occupy a unique position inside an organization.

Senior leaders may be looking at financial performance, strategic priorities, competitive pressure, and long-term sustainability.

Employees are looking at what happens when a real customer calls, when a process doesn't work, or when a new policy creates an unexpected obstacle.

Neither perspective is automatically wrong.

But each group may be missing information the other possesses.

As a manager, you're often one of the few people who regularly hears both perspectives.

That creates an important responsibility.

Lead upward by representing your team's concerns honestly and constructively. Lead downward by explaining decisions clearly and helping employees navigate the impact.

Doing both well requires judgment.

Leading Up Requires More Than Complaining

Let's say your employees are convinced the new customer-service policy will create problems.

You could tell your boss that everyone hates the decision.

That may be true, but it doesn't provide much useful information.

A better approach is to understand the business objective and then bring evidence, examples, and potential solutions into the conversation.

You might say:

"I understand we're trying to reduce service costs, and I support that objective. I'm concerned the proposed policy could increase repeat contacts and customer complaints. Our team has seen this pattern before. Could I walk you through the data and suggest an approach that might accomplish the same savings without creating those problems?"

That's constructive advocacy.

You're not challenging your boss's authority or trying to win an argument. You're helping the organization make a more informed decision.

This is particularly important for new managers who sometimes assume their responsibility is simply to carry out whatever comes from above.

Your experience with employees, customers, and day-to-day operations can be valuable to senior leadership.

But you have to communicate it in a way that helps people make decisions.

Leading Down Requires More Than Delivering the Announcement

Now consider your responsibility to employees.

Suppose leadership listens to your concerns but decides to proceed with the policy.

Your team wants to know what happened.

You could say, "I told them this was a bad idea, but they wouldn't listen."

That response may make you feel better, but it doesn't help your team.

Instead, explain what you know about the decision, acknowledge the concerns employees raised, and clarify what happens next.

You might say:

"I raised our concerns about repeat customer contacts and response times. Leadership considered those issues and decided to move forward. Our responsibility now is to implement the change and monitor the results. I want us to identify problems early, document what we're seeing, and bring useful information back to leadership."

You've given employees a path forward.

They know their concerns were represented. They understand what is expected. And they have a way to contribute information that could improve the decision over time.

That's leadership in both directions.

Sometimes Your Boss Still Says No

One of the harder lessons in management is learning that being heard doesn't guarantee getting the answer you want.

You may make a thoughtful recommendation, present compelling evidence, and suggest a reasonable alternative.

Your boss may still choose another direction.

That doesn't automatically mean your input was ignored.

Senior leaders may be balancing financial constraints, competing priorities, contractual commitments, or risks you can't fully see.

You should have the confidence to challenge decisions constructively.

You should also have the humility to recognize that your perspective may be incomplete.

And when a legitimate decision is final, your responsibility is to help the team move forward while continuing to surface meaningful new information.

Your Team Needs an Advocate Who Can Also Lead

Employees should know you'll represent their concerns.

They should also know you'll be honest about what you can and cannot change.

You aren't promising to win every argument with senior leadership. You're demonstrating that you'll take their experiences seriously and communicate them responsibly.

Likewise, your boss should know that when you raise concerns, you're trying to improve organizational performance rather than simply resist a decision.

That's a reputation worth developing.

When employees trust that you'll advocate for them and senior leaders trust that you'll help execute decisions, you become a more effective manager.

Strong managers can represent their employees without undermining their boss, and support organizational decisions without dismissing their employees.

That's what it means to lead in both directions.

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