Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up

by John Baldoni

Every manager on the move wants to have influence at the top in order to get his or her ideas heard and ultimately acted upon. In Lead Your Boss, recognized leadership guru John Baldoni gives managers new—as well as tried-and-true— methods for influencing both their bosses and their peers, and giving senior leaders reasons to follow their lead. Featuring instructive stories based on real-life experiences from leaders at all levels, Lead Your Boss reveals proven strategies • Developing spheres of influence • Handling tough issues • Asserting oneself diplomatically • Putting the team first • Persuading up • Establishing trust • Using organizational politics to everyone’s advantage • Inspiring others through-out the organization Lead Your Boss gives readers practical, tactical advice on becoming a key player in any organization, regardless of whether or not they have an office in the Csuite…YET.

Genres: Leadership, Management, Nonfiction, Business

225 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

John Baldoni is an internationally recognized keynote speaker and author of 16 books that have been translated into ten languages.

John’s thought leadership is reflected in his writing as well as his choice of media: columns, videos and books. John also integrates piano improvisations into his keynotes which he illustrates with his still life photos. John is also the host of LinkedIn Live’s GRACE under pressure interview series, a platform that has enabled him to interview more a hundred global business, academic and thought leaders and doers.

John’s books include Grace Under Pressure: Leading Through Change and Crisis, Grace Notes: Leading in an Upside-Down World, GRACE: A Leader’s Guide to a Better Us, MOXIE: The Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership, Lead with Purpose, Lead Your Boss and The Leader’s Pocket Guide. Coming in April 2023 is Grace Under Pressure: Leading Through Change and Crisis.

In 2022, Thinkers 360 named John a Top 10 Thought Leader for both Leadership and Management. Also in 2022, Global Gurus ranked John a Top 20 global leadership expert, a list he has been on since 2007. In 2021, the International Federation of Learning and Development named John a World-Class Mentor and named him to its Hall of Fame. In 2018 Inc.com named John a Top 100 speaker and Trust Across America honored John with its Lifetime Achievement Award for Trust. In 2014 Inc.com listed John as a Top 50 leadership expert.

John is also a member of the renowned 100 Coaches, a group of executive coaches and thought leaders from the worlds of business, academia and social service. 100 Coaches was founded by Marshall Goldsmith.

John established a career as a highly sought-after executive coach, where he has had the privilege of working with senior leaders in virtually every industry from pharmaceutical to real estate, packaged goods to automobiles, and finance to health care.

John has authored more than 800 leadership columns for a variety of online publications including Forbes, Harvard Business Review and Inc.com. John also produced and appears in a video coaching series for SmartBrief, a news channel with over 4 million readers. John is the author and host of two online leadership courses: “Leading through Change & Crisis” and “Leading with Resilience + Grace” for Methods of Leaders/100 Coaches. John’s leadership resource website is www.johnbaldoni.com

Reviews

[Remo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante lectura sobre cómo podemos mejorar nuestra posición en un entorno corporativo. Hay ideas esperables (créate una red de contactos) que luego son refinadas (están los tight contacts o amigos y los loose contacts o conocidos. Estos últimos son responsables del 90% de los trabajos que se consiguen por recomendación=> Cultiva una red de conocidos también). Según el título indica, se centra mucho más en cómo debemos hacerle la vida más fácil a los jefes (sin entrar en servilismos, por supuesto) para entrar en su radar y conseguir más reconocimiento y más responsabilidad. Interesante. Comparte bastantes consejos y apreciaciones con Power, que es el que me parece una obra maestra.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

225 pages of insipid, limp advice. Cliches abound such as "discover your inner compass" and "challenge the status quo." I think I would've gotten more concrete advice from a bag of fortune cookies. It is books like this which give business books and self help books a bad name.

The book starts by telling you why managers fail: ineffective communication, poor interpersonal skills, job mismatch, failure to clarify direction and performance expectations, failure to delegate and empower. When I read this I was ready to learn-- instead I get things like "exert courage in times of crisis." Waste of time.

[Tiffany · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book as a prospective leadership book for our book club at work. Nothing worked for me in this book. I did like that each chapter started with a character case study, but I felt like the leadership qualities that the person portrayed didn't match the point the author was trying to make in the following chapter. I did like that the book was well outlined, but the headers for each section to me often didn't match the point that was attempting to be made. The book didn't flow and there was nothing interesting in the way the material was being presented. For me it just didn't work.

[Garland Vance · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so basic and elementary that it's not worth a full review. If you know how to contribute to an organization (e.g. think strategically, creativity, initiative) then you know the premise of this book. It's not about leading your boss. It's about how to be a decent employee. Dolby waste your tim or money on this!

[Mindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not many new ideas, but a good read if you aren't that familiar with managing up or from the middle. It is helpful even if you have no direct reports.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got more out of the references than the book itself which was repetitive and needed the info I was looking for - what WORDS to use.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book I read for a class at work. Lead Your Boss is very pie-in-the-sky. While I appreciate Baldoni's grand vision of a corporate world in which middle managers are able to affect change by using their optimism, insight, and charm... it's just not realistic enough. That said, the book is a helpful reminder of what middle managers could be in a perfect world -- a world in which upper management isn't too busy worrying about quarterly numbers to actually want innovation and grand thinking. Perhaps I'm not middle-management enough to truly appreciate this book. Overall, it's an easy read with some nice ideas about encouraging team cohesion. It's definitely one of the better management style books I've read.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, this book did have something to offer for someone in a position like mine at work. The reference in the beginning of the book to Tiger Woods making an effort to "take time off for fun and family" is humourous in light of his affairs. It's now a bit of a tough-sell to encourage young business people to emulate him.

This book is in dire need of a proof-reader. I hope if they do a future edition of it, they manage to reduce the number of typos and errors in the text.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started this book, I really wanted to give it five stars. However, there's some poor editing (entire passages are repeated), and I felt like the book was less about leading your boss and more about managing your employees. Yes, there are some good general ideas about management and leadership, but it wasn't what I was hoping to read based on the title.

[Maria Aliferis-Gjerde]

This was a great leadership book.

[Gary Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good quick read. Definitely pick up a lot of tips to bring to work with this one.