Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win

by Michael Useem

Today’s best leaders know how to lead up, a necessary strategy when a supervisor is micromanaging rather than macrothinking, when a division president offers clear directives but can’t see the future, or when investors demand instant gain but need long-term growth. Through vivid, compelling stories, Michael Useem reveals how upward leadership can transform incipient disaster into hard-won triumph. For example, U.S. Marine Corps General Peter Pace reconciled the conflicting priorities of six bosses by keeping them well informed and challenging their instructions when necessary. Useem also explores what happens when those who should step forward fail to do so—Mount Everest mountaineers might have saved themselves from disaster during a fateful ascent if only they had questioned their guides’ flawed decisions.

Leading Up is a call to action. It asks us to get results by helping our superiors lead and by building on the best in everybody’s nature, and it offers a pragmatic blueprint for doing so.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Management, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Michael Useem is a professor in the Management Department and Faculty Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management and McNulty Leadership Program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His university teaching includes MBA and executive-MBA courses on management and leadership, and he offers programs on leadership and governance for managers in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.  He works on leadership development with many companies and organizations in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.

He is co-anchor for a weekly program “Leadership in Action” on SiriusXM Radio Channel 132 and co-director of the annual CEO Academy. He is the author of The Leader’s Checklist, The Strategic Leader’s Roadmap (with Harbir Singh), The Edge: How Ten CEOs Learned to Lead—And the Lessons for Us All, Go Long: Why Long-Term Thinking Is Your Best Short-Term Strategy (with Dennis Carey, Brian Dumaine, and Rodney Zemmel). Mastering Catastrophic Risk (with Howard Kunreuther), Fortune Makers: The Leaders Creating China’s Great Global Companies (with Harbir Singh, Neng Liang, and Peter Cappelli), The India Way (with Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, and Jitendra Singh), and Boards That Lead (with Ram Charan and Dennis Carey).

Reviews

[Allen Jr. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The use of extended case-studies is a common approach in leadership literature, but in my opinion, not the most effective. While Useem has selected a number of engaging stories, and I appreciate his style of inserting brief "lessons" into the midst of the narrative (rather than saving all the principles for the end of the story), unfortunately, I found most of his observations and insights to be rather trite and not necessarily highly transferable to those of us who are not negotiating foreign policy, commanding armies, or scaling Mt Everest.

My primary interest is in the area of followership, and I was hoping that "Leading Up" would provide an important perspective in how subordinates can make significant and necessary contributions to their superiors. Many of the stories do illustrate such contributions, but this book is hardly a manual consisting of tangible how-to's or recommended best practices. It is an opportunity to be inspired, perhaps, but little more.

If you are interested in some of the topics covered by his selected case studies--ranging from the Civil War to encounters with God--then these anecdotes may be enjoyable. But keep your expectations low if you're looking for fresh, deep insight into this significant aspect of the leadership-followership dynamic.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is even more important as a voter than as an employee.
However, I started reading this book due to a prior boss. I was pleasantly surprised at the political and military examples that were used to illustrate both failure and success. Not everyone enjoyed the approach but I would recommend without hesitation.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 2 out of 5]

About half this book is worth reading, the other half is can be thrown out. Unfortunately, the chapters worth reading are interspersed among the irrelevant ones.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I expected or hoped for. This was primarily a collection of somewhat dated anecdotal stories, with then some fairly strained attempts to show how they related to the premise of leading up. To me, it was a backwards formula. I think I would have gotten more from a construction of principles or concepts spelled out, followed with specific real world examples of how they applied. Additionally, the chosen stories themselves were decades old and may have seemed fresh at the time, but haven’t aged well in relevancy.

[Jens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of reading between the lines, because the stories are not to the point and the generic points he distilles at the end are as common as they are useless. Yet, between the lines I liked the realization that (and specific chapter about) the one at the very top is not finally free, quite the opposite, has all the customers/shareholders/board to inform/influence/persuade (in short, leading up is reaching out to those important for higher up). That's how leading up has the same trickle-up effect as the "Commander's intent" trickles down. It is needed and passed on/up.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars.

Helpful insights for anyone in a position answering to superiors(s), including a leadership position. The book is predominately real world examples of how to do “lead up” well or how to do it poorly. The examples range from ancient biblical characters to semi-contemporary businessmen. The book loses some points with me when the author gets to his biblical examples. I don’t think I entirely agree with his take on these stories, theologically speaking. Never less, it is worth the read whether you’re in a business or military context.

[T22hawk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stories are great and interesting but WAY too hard, because some of the stories are years long and extremely complicated situations I feel it is hard to draw a hard and clear correlation to the principles he's trying to relate. The stories are true and fascinating and TONS to be learned from them and the principles are true and inarguable points but as far so the principles directly relating to the stories, neh, that is arguable.

[Vivian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a slog to get through. While there is some useful information, a lot of the chapters are repetitive, providing the same lesson but worded differently. Chapter 9 is the only chapter written well.

[Dayton Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many useful lessons in the book, but each one comes with a lot of more or less unnecessary or unrelated background information that doesn't help build said lessons. Solely based on content the book is quite useful, but the delivery and presentation leave something to be desired.

[Brian W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I was disappointed. The book used stories and tried to bring out the lessons on how they did or did not do to influence their boss or HHQ. There is a lot of hindsight, 20/20, and sometimes an ideal and unrealistic expectation on how someone should act within a situation.

[Gordon Paisley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow--already wish I had had this book many years ago. Has some very good insights for leading up for success.
Some chapters (the one on climbing Mount Everest) were less valuable than others.

Take what works and don't worry about the rest. Lots of good examples that illustrate the theme well.

[Tamara Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there were some good ideas in this book, the stories used to tell them, which included both military and biblical stories, were a distraction to me from the business lessons I was looking to learn.

[Rachel Meints · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book with many historical examples about communicating up the chain. Really details how well communicating up can help you win the trust of your organization.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite chapter in Useem's Leading Up is the 8th, entitled "Persuading the Ultimate Authority: Prophets Abraham, Moses, and Samuel Intercede with God Himself." I liked--but didn't like alot or love--several of Useem's other chapters in this book. If all were like this 8th one, I'd rate it as a 5-star overall.

Leading Up explicates how followers can--and sometimes must--lead their leaders. One need not occupy the nominal "leader's" role, in other words, in order to exercise leadership as another member of a group. What unites Hebrew prophets like Abraham, Moses and Samuel, in Useem's view, is how they exercise this delicate balance with the Almighty Himself.

"A successful prophet," Useem explains, "maintain[s] a disciplined independence of mind in the context of absolute obedience" (p. 271).

In other words, Useem shows how "loyal followership" can also include some constructively critical "loyal dissent" at times. Neither God nor any other enlightened leader must always be blindly obeyed. The paradox here begins with one of the first premises of monotheistic allegiance: "Accepting and embracing God's authority is the essence of the Christian and Jewish traditions," Useem writes (on p. 248). (I wonder why he doesn't add the Muslim faith to that list!)

"Yet the biblical prophets remind us," Useem points out, "that interceding with the highest authority may [sometimes] be the best course [for a leader-up to take]--even if it is the toughest. Being truly responsible to those below us sometimes means confronting those who lead us. When we're in between, leading down means we have little choice but to lead up as well" (p. 250).

Leadership scholar Ron Heifetz describes negotiating this kind of paradoxical tightrope as "walking on the razor's edge." One of the challenges of "leading from the middle" of many hierarchical organization is facilitating open, candid communication between those people in the trenches and those higher up the food chain who often wield much more authority.

"All institutions depend on a dynamic give-and-take among those at the top, the middle, and the bottom. The success of any hierarchy depends on communication and flexibility across the vertical divides" (p. 276).

Wise words, indeed!

[Frederic Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains some good lessons, but I really should have read it earlier in my career. After spending a couple of decades negotiating corporate and government bureaucracies, I'm pretty much already doing the kind of things suggested by the author. The book's strongest features are Useem's anecdotes about leaders who have succeeded - or failed - in managing their bosses during critical situations. He's a decent writer, and I thought his military examples - especially those from the Civil War - were very interesting. Although his corporate examples were unmemorable, his chapter on biblical prophets who attempted, and sometimes succeeded, to change the course of the biggest boss of all(God, not Donald Trump)makes this a worthwhile read.

[Miguel Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on actual stories. Thats a good thing in my book! not technical or boring, applies management and communication lessons to real world situations and even biblical ones...

[Natallia Shauchenka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not take out any valuable ideas after reading through one third of the book, chose not to waste time continuing.

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Each chapter is a different case study. Some chapters are worth reading. Some are not.