‘Leading up’ ends communication bottlenecks

Do you feel your team members over communicate on the details and under communicate on the issues? You may have a list of strategic responsibilities that are stalled because the team bombards you with tedious questions.

In contrast, your team members may be frustrated as well. Oftentimes, employees feel like they are spinning their wheels while waiting on leadership to make decisions. By the very nature of the leadership role, you likely are pulled in several different directions at any given time, yet have to make critical decisions that impact your work.

Disconnection between leaders and their team members can result in chaotic attempts to complete tasks with misread cues and stalled work. Fortunately, a common solution exists for the problems faced by both sides: leading up.

Leading up is a way to address communication bottlenecks between leaders and team members. By leading up team members can:

• Manage expectations and avoid surprises

• Put leaders to work for you on what is important

• Accomplish strategic tasks

• Increase work quality

• Decrease ambiguity

• Increase likelihood of success

• Enhance credibility

The responsibility of team members is to lead up and draw out the needed information and decisions from the leader — with the right attitude, communication channels, and tone.

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