How do you become fully confident and in control of your emotions and experience at work? It’s by mastering your own psychology and that of others. On this show, we decode the science of success, exploring how to get out of your own way and advance your career to new levels without becoming someone you’re not.

I’m Melody Wilding, bestselling author, human behavior professor and award winning executive coach. Get ready and let’s put psychology to work for you.

Think about the last time you tried to influence a decision at work. Maybe it was explaining to your VP why a timeline needed to shift, or maybe you were trying to make a case for your team to get some additional headcount. Maybe you were trying to get buy in for a new approach that would save everyone time.

And maybe, despite your best efforts and intentions, your approach didn’t land in the way you hoped. We often find ourselves wondering why our perfectly logical argument doesn’t persuade someone. Why our careful presentation doesn’t translate into the results we want. Why others seem to navigate things so effortlessly, while we feel like it’s a constant uphill battle.

The problem is not your skills or intelligence. You have plenty of that. In fact, you’re probably doing everything that seems to make sense. You’re preparing a lot. You are making what you think are sound arguments. You’re choosing your timing carefully.

But here’s what people don’t realize. There are invisible dynamics at play in every workplace.

Unwritten rules about when decisions really get made. Hidden patterns in how different personalities process information. Subtle signals that shape how leaders perceive your potential. Without a strategic framework. It’s all too easy to not know what to say. Or do, or worse to say or do the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong way.

We might have the right instincts, but timing matters. Approach matters. You might craft the perfect presentation, but if you don’t know that the real decision was made in casual conversations weeks ago, you’re out of luck. You might adjust your communication style after your boss has already formed an impression of you.

That is hard to change. You might wait for the right time, quote unquote, to share your career goals, only to learn that the timeline for those discussions happened months earlier. And when all of this happens, we often find ourselves feeling like we’re reacting to everything around us instead of actively shaping those situations.

And here’s the thing. I do not want you to blame yourself for this, because these are blind spots that even the smartest professionals have. Because no one teaches us this. We’re expected to just figure it out on our own through trial and error, wondering why our hard work isn’t translating into the recognition and opportunities we deserve. And sometimes we wonder if maybe we’re not cut out for our role after all. But what if you could stop second guessing yourself? What if instead of hoping your approach works, you had a clear roadmap for turning any workplace situation into an advantage? Imagine knowing exactly what to say to get buy in for your ideas, how to set boundaries that people actually respect, how to make your advancement feel inevitable rather than uncertain.

That level of confidence and clarity, it’s not just possible. It can be predictable when you have the right framework.

And that’s exactly what I’m sharing with you over the next two episodes, an exclusive look at the 10 Conversations Framework from my new book, managing Up How to Get What You Need From the People in Charge.

Today, you are getting an inside peek at a recent training where I broke all of this down. And in this episode, we’re going to cover the first five essential conversations.

And the next episode we’ll dive into the next five conversations, the more advanced ones that build on these foundations.

Remember, time is running out to pre order your copy of the book and get instant access to a bundle of over $400 worth of bonuses. That includes the on demand Pushback and Protect Your Time training. This is going to show you word for word scripts, exactly how to decline on realistic deadlines, extra meetings, and more.

You also get access to the Promotion Playbook on demand masterclass. That is a three part video series showing you how to make your advancement feel inevitable. And we even include negotiation scripts that our clients have used to secure $20k raises and lots more. And you also get chapter cheat sheets. This is your 10 page implementation guide with ready to use key concepts from the book. You can keep it at your desk for easy reference anytime.

Head to managingup.Com now to preorder and get instant access to the bonus bundle. But you have to do this before the book’s official release day on March 4th, 2025. After that, these bonuses disappear.

All right. With that, let’s dive into the first five conversations.

Enjoy.

When you have been told to manage up, what have you been told to do? Just type a few words or phrases in the chat. When you have been told to manage up, what does that sound like? I’m sure like me and like many of our clients, you have heard these pithy little statements, you know, come with solutions, not problems, build trust, anticipate people’s needs.

Yep. Anticipate needs. Sound like the smartest, provide feedback. Yep, come with classic, come with solutions. Raise my hand. Be proactive. Make them look good. Excellent. Yeah, all of these sound really good. These one liners sound really good, but when you get down to it, what do these actually mean?

So, this type of advice it’s very oversimplified. It’s not very instructive at the end of the day, it’s pretty broad. And it completely misses how all of the different aspects of managing up fit together. And when you try to piecemeal these one liners, you get a very scattered approach that, frankly, falls apart the minute that things get complicated or don’t go as planned.

And honestly, I think for many of us, that’s, it’s probably very often. Again, all of you are very, very busy. I know you don’t have time to be scraping the internet, taking these one liners, trying to figure out exactly how to make them work together. It’s not going to work for very long. And the truth is that managing up is a skill. And it builds upon itself. Each step creates the foundation and makes the next step easier. And so that is exactly why I developed this 10 Conversations Framework. What I’m going to share with you next is your roadmap. And what I want to do today is unpack the psychology behind each of these conversations, each of these interactions, why you do them in the order that I share here and how everything connects together to help you get what you want at work so that you’re no longer feeling like you’re just making things up. You’re throwing spaghetti at the wall. You’re just hoping something works. This is going to give you a much more systematic way to channel your perceptiveness, the way you notice, you observe everything that’s going on, to do that in a way that actually is going to get you noticed and valued by the people above you. So again, today I’m going to give you the roadmap. You could take what I share with you today. You could implement it on your own. Or, what you can do, and I know many of you have already pre ordered Managing Up. If you have, say me in the chat, we want to shout you out, we want to celebrate you.

In Managing Up, it takes everything we’re covering today, it adds tons of detail, in depth tactics, word for word scripts, templates, exercises for every scenario and nuance you might face. Of course, there’s only so much I can go into an hour and the book, you get the whole enchilada. And as I said, right now, during the pre order period, you also get that over $400 worth of pre order implementation bonuses. And also going to announce a very cool event we have coming up in the coming weeks. So more on that in a little bit. And if you have ordered the book, thank you so much. Your pre orders. Really, truly do make a humongous difference. So thank you so much.

Now, when I say the 10 conversations, I’m not necessarily talking about just one singular sit down conversation. Okay. I’m talking about also, the overlooked opportunities, the interactions we have every day, that two minutes you have before everyone else joins the Zoom call when it’s just you and your skip level manager making small talk. The quick Slack exchange after a meeting wraps up. Every single one of those moments is a chance to shape how you’re perceived.

And these conversations, they are sequenced in a specific order. We’re going to start with the most fundamental, which then pave the way for more advanced ones later on.

Everything starts with the alignment conversation, getting crystal clear on what actually matters. What type of work actually matters. Not what you think matters, not what your colleague down the hall thinks, but what truly moves the needle for your boss and the organization.

I think we have all had that sinking feeling where you pour your heart, you pour so much time into something only to discover it’s not to your manager’s liking. You were solving the wrong problem all along. Or when you realize the metrics you were tracking aren’t actually the ones your boss cares about.

Those are the types of things that happen when we skip over the alignment conversation. We feel sidelined, frustrated, like we’re just spinning our wheels and not getting anywhere. We’re just having to redo work over and over. In order to align with your boss, counterintuitively, you have to get clear on your own vision first. That’s the only way to know if you can actually find a win win between what you want to do, and what you have to offer, and what your boss wants and the organization needs.

So your one year vision, think of it a little bit like your career North Star. When priorities shift, because they will. When a new project lands on your plate, because it will. When you’re caught between competing demands. Again, you will be. Alignment becomes your decision making compass. It’s like a filter. It helps you make smart choices about where do you invest your energy, which battles do you fight, when do you let things go?

And there’s another reason everything has to start with the alignment conversation. And that’s because it’s actually one of the safer conversations to have. Very few people are going to give you side eye, going to question you for wanting to understand priorities better, or trying to be more effective in your role.

Most bosses love this kind of initiative. They want to talk about what’s important to them and what they care about. And a lot of this conversation comes down to listening well, to asking smart conversations, to observing what’s happening around you. And, let’s face it, that even the best bosses sometimes struggle to articulate what they really want.

And your job, a place you can come in and help them, is to get clear on what that is by asking really good questions, the right questions. But again,going back to those power pivots before, you also have to know who else beyond your boss, besides your boss, who else do you need to align with?

Whether that’s your boss’s boss, uh, your boss’s peers, other stakeholders who have a vested interest in your project and success, because again, managing up and aligning is not just about your manager. Alright, so once you have alignment on goals and priorities, You can have the most perfect alignment in the world, but if you can’t figure out how to work together effectively, you’re still going to struggle to get anything done. You’re going to feel like you want to pull your hair out.

And so that’s exactly why conversation number two is the styles conversation.

This is the single biggest reason I see people struggle at work. Often, it’s not that their boss is impossible to work with, or just difficult. It’s often that we are speaking a completely different language than them without realizing it. We’re trying to talk past each other. Think about how much time you spend second guessing yourself at work.

Why does that person keep interrupting me in meetings? Do they not respect my expertise? Why do they need so many details on everything? Don’t they trust me?

90 percent of the time, and I’m, trust me, there are real toxic situations out there. But most of the time, the majority of the time, what you’re interpreting as judgment or criticism actually comes down to a difference in styles.

So we want you to think about treating your boss like they have a user manual, because depending on their personality and a mix of two psychological variables, they do. And those two variables are dominance and sociability. And in the book, I break down the four communication styles that your manager may have.

Some need constant updates. Some hate them. Some process information verbally. Others need it in writing. Some make decisions quickly. Others need time to mull things over. And once you can decode your manager’s primary operating system, you can stop taking their quirks so personally. You can start using that information to lower your stress and theirs.

And this is not to say that you have to just adapt to the situation. You just have to be a chameleon and contort yourself to whatever your manager wants. The styles conversation goes both ways. It’s about offering and asserting your preferences too. How do you process information best. When environment helps you do your best work.

When do you need time to think versus how quickly are you ready to decide. Most of us actually never take time to sit down and think about these things, let alone, like, actually articulate themselves for ourselves and others. But we just know something feels off at work or we’re annoyed or we don’t feel valued.

But once you understand your own operating system, that’s when you can make intentional choices about how to flex, how to adapt your style without just completely abandoning yourself.

So think of this more a little like turning dials up or down. Maybe you are someone who’s naturally more enthusiastic, high energy. Maybe your boss is a bit more reserved. You can still keep that positive energy, just adjusting the volume slightly so the other person is more receptive to your message. So it’s about finding that sweet spot where you are still you, but you just have some strategic, thoughtful adaptations. Now, let’s say you know that you work for someone who prefers a lot of data over someone who prefers just the high level. So you’ve mastered the styles. You understand exactly what metrics matter most for your team. You’ve got alignment. Now, when you spot a problem that you want to solve, project you want to take initiative of, you’re better prepared to make that case because you have that information.

And so that’s why our third conversation is the ownership conversation. And that’s what it’s all about. So at the core of ownership is choosing the right problems to solve. Are there bottlenecks that cause headaches for multiple people? Are there neglected needs that everyone complains about, but no one addresses?

Is there feedback you’re getting over and over or a way you can get ahead on certain projects before everything comes urgent? So keep in mind that without mastering or without having rather the styles conversation first, you might solve the right problem, but you may go about communicating it in the wrong way.

So, again, classic example, you present a detailed, you know, 10, 20 page proposal to a boss who just wants the quick bullet points. And, if you also skip over alignment, you might solve the wrong problem. Brilliantly, right? You could solve the wrong problem that’s not aligned and the right work to be focusing on.

So you will totally botch any effort at ownership if you just come in, you know, demanding to take things over. You have to test the waters first. You have to have small conversations about potential changes and gauge reactions. It’s where that, uh, observant nature comes in again. You need to frame your ideas in terms of either how it reduces pain points or it increases results.

And using we language, we oriented language shows your team player, right? Navigates the resistance when it comes up because it definitely will. There is truth to that old adage, present solutions, not problems. But what’s even better than doing that is presenting trade offs. So when you present trade offs, we could do X, we could do Y, here’s the considerations for each.

You’re showing your manager you’ve thought critically about the problem, you’ve considered multiple options. You’ve weighed the implications of each. That elevates the conversation to an entirely new level. Goes back to positioning yourself more as a trusted advisor, a partner versus someone who is just dumping problems on your manager or who is saying, you know, my way is best. Just being very prescriptive about it.

Before you walk into any conversation with your boss, especially the ownership conversation, ask yourself, what are the key options here? What are the benefits? What are the risks of each one? How can I present them in a way that’s clear, concise, that’s actionable?

And always close the loop, ask for their input. You can make your recommendation to say, I think direction B would be best for this reason, but do you see any alternatives? Anything I may have missed? Or how do you think we should weigh these priorities? So you’re inviting your boss into the process.

What are your takeaways so far? The controller, yes. Kristen said less is more. Many times less is more. Being more concise actually shows we have command over something, which is the irony of it. Rashmi said presenting trade offs. Valerie, the nuances. Excellent. Alignment becomes a, uh, compass, Kimberly said. Using the small moments. Yes. Donna, the styles piece is golden and trade offs. Amazing.

Now, the tricky thing about ownership, um, maybe some of you have been here before, is that when you take ownership, you might go overboard. Either because, um, you are a doer and you are a sensitive striver. There’s a reason the second part of that is striver. Or, you might have more work dumped on you. You’ve heard, you know, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. Well, this is why the boundaries conversation is there as the next step.

This may ruffle some feathers, but in the workplace, no, is not a complete sentence. In other parts of life, no is absolutely a complete sentence. But in the workplace, just imagine if someone came up to you, if one of your direct reports or a colleague, you asked them for a favor and they, you, they just said to you, no. Imagine how that would, so this is why, the boundaries conversation is an entire conversation because your pushback needs to be much more diplomatic if you want to stay someone who is trusted and actually have your limits respected. Whether we’re talking about saying no to extra work, longer hours, unrealistic deadlines, more meetings that you’re being asked to attend, doesn’t matter, We tend to overlook power dynamics in this conversation. Yeah, Kimberly was saying boundaries has been such a huge learning curve for me in the past few years of my career after experiencing burnout. And for many of us, it is because we’re overlooking the power dynamics piece. We all have different leverage around how often we can say no, how assertively we can say no.

And that’s based on things like your tenure, the strength of your relationships, your boss’s management style, the organizational culture and context that you are in. And so if you are not aware or, um, cognizant of these in your approach, if you don’t know this, it’s really easy to come on too strong or to be too weak.

All right, so once you’ve learned to protect your time, your energy, you’re going to start noticing patterns that need to be addressed, which is why the feedback conversation is next. Let’s type in the chat again, just for fun. I want to hear what is a pet peeve you have of your manager?

What is a pet peeve you have of your manager that you would love to give them feedback on? Sasha said mansplaining. They never give me any feedback. That’s a good one. They don’t listen.

They don’t follow through. These are great. Constantly interrupting. Yes. Yeah, we often hear they’re vague with their introductions, and then I have to redo work. They play favorites with project assignments. So this conversation, it’s about more than just letting off steam for the annoyances. It’s really about developing the confidence to speak up when things aren’t working.

And the wisdom to know when and how to do it. So before diving in to any feedback conversation, you may be noticing a theme here. You need to assess, is this worth addressing? So, some questions to ask yourself.

Has this happened multiple times? Is it a pattern? What are the consequences if I stay silent? To me individually, my own mental, physical health? To the team? Do I have all of the facts here? Might there be aspects of this I don’t understand that are influencing my boss to do this? And can I be part of the solution? Am I willing to be part of the solution? Have I tried fixing what’s in my control first?

So, for example, if you are frustrated that your boss isn’t, um, handing you opportunities, have you tried fixing speaking up in meetings more and advancing your own visibility first? So that mental checklist of questions, it helps make sure you are raising legitimate concerns. You’re not just reacting to one off incidents, or you’re not just reacting from an emotional place that you won’t feel good about later.

Now, when it comes to actually giving feedback again, going back to managing your own emotions, we need to 1st process and strip away. The emotional assumptions we have about someone’s behavior, and that’s the key word there behavior. You are going to get so much further. If you focus on specific observable behaviors, so instead of labeling your manager as a micromanager, what exactly does that look like? If someone is watching a movie of you and your boss, how would they be able to tell they’re a micromanager?

Maybe they want to be CC’d on every single email, or they demand daily updates on your work. What’s the actual behavior? And then what’s the change you want to see? Again, you need to be willing to be part of the solution here.

Now, this is where conversations are building on each other. Again, the delivery itself is going to need to be, um, tailored to what you’ve gathered about your manager from the styles conversation, but it’s also important to mentally, even if this helps you in your mind’s eye, almost go from you across the table from each other, you against them, to metaphorically putting you both on the same side of the table. So it’s you and your boss versus the problem instead of you and them.

The biggest thing people often overlook in this conversation is the follow through and the repair. I’m going to mention that in a second.

So follow through, many times we have to be part of the follow through. We can’t just give feedback and then we’re like, okay, I hope it happens. We want to offer gentle reminders, or we may want to offer course corrections.

And then the repair part is important, because any type of feedback, it, withdraws a little from the bank account of that relationship. And so when you see positive changes, however small, we have to acknowledge those. We have to reinforce that behavior with, Hey, I really appreciated when, really appreciated getting that feedback within 24 hours. It was really helpful for me to be able to turn that around for the client. Right, reinforce more of what you want to see. Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of psychology at work. If you enjoyed the show, I’d be so grateful if you could take just a minute to rate and review wherever you are listening. It’s how we reach more professionals just like you. And if you’d like to see even more content on how to feel more self assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, follow me on LinkedIn or head to the links in the show notes.