Chicago Tribune 

Review
Master the art of coaching the boss--with discretion

By Jeffrey Steele
Special to the Tribune
Published January 20, 2002

Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Win

By Michael Useem

Crown Business, $25.95

In the first hours after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, eBay chief executive officer Margaret Whitman called in to company headquarters from Japan, where she had traveled on business. Not knowing how long the air shutdown would prevent her from returning, Whitman issued three instructions to her staff:

Make sure all employees are safe, ensure our servers are secure and start thinking about a way eBay might help in the relief effort.

Whitman was immediately informed that all three measures had already been taken. All employees had been accounted for, the servers were up and running and plans were already underway for what would become known as Auction for America, an initiative to raise $100 million by auctioning donated products through the eBay auction system.

According to author Mike Useem, history is replete with similar examples of underlings taking the reins and leading their superiors. And in his work with thousands of managers and company executives, Useem has come to recognize that many organizations fail because employees are too intimidated or otherwise reluctant to advise and challenge their leaders.

That realization has led Useem, a professor of business at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, to write "Leading Up," a book that examines the importance of employees leading their bosses, and in turn encouraging their own subordinates to lead them. Using examples from both world history and recent business successes and failures, he draws the distinction between discharging responsibilities and exceeding them.

"I really view leadership as a calling," Useem said. "In that regard, we need to lead up when we see an opportunity to do so. And for those below us, we need to help them become better at coaching us and making us the leaders we should be and sometimes aren't."

Of course, any attempt to coach your own boss can be dangerous. Useem says the critical issue is how to master the art of upward mentoring without it becoming a career-shortening move. Three primary principles underpin this mastery.

The first is to make sure that you're not usurping your superior's authority, he said. The second is to build trust between your boss and yourself, based on your own reliability, respect for your superior and your ability to help him or her recognize the quality of your thinking. And the third is to be able to persuasively express and explain your ideas to your supervisor.

"It's really the art of good relationships, going in the upward direction," Useem observed. "Leading up is not seeking to ingratiate yourself or curry favor with your boss. What it really comes down to is appreciating what your superior, even possibly the chief executive, would want from you if the objective and purpose of the organization is to be realized. A very good test, and one I apply to myself all the time, is if I were president of my institution right now, if I understood clearly what the ultimate purpose of the organization required, what would I want me to do?"

If you are a manager, it's also essential to create a culture in which everyone feels free to come forward and offer great ideas, Useem added. That requires you to actively encourage your subordinates to provide those ideas, not only by urging them to do so but also by praising and rewarding those who step up, even if they criticize you in the process.

What should readers take away from the book? "The way we normally think of leadership is that it is offering a vision of where to go and then mobilizing the people below you to go there with you, whether you're leading a country, a company, a school, a church or a synagogue," Useem said.

"But leading up is equally important," he said. "And also is a matter of having a vision and then mobilizing the people above you to do what is best for the organization, of persuading them that your ideas and solutions are much needed and should be enacted."