Leading Up: Five Ways to Manage Your Boss with the Army’s Mission Command

Throughout my 27 years as an officer in the U.S. Army, and especially during assignments in the Special Operations community, I learned from some of the greatest leaders in modern U.S. history. Many of these individuals rose to the highest levels of our armed forces and, later, the business world. In addition to having a consistent “mission first, people always” mindset, one more attribute these leaders had in common was they knew how to “lead up.” They understood how to manage their relationship with their boss, especially regarding their boss’s expectations. Leading up is a very powerful skill because no matter where we are in our leadership journey, we all have a boss. Senior military leaders are always accountable to the Constitution and the American people, but they may also have to manage relationships with a service chief, the Secretary of Defense, members of Congress, or even the President. Leading up is also valuable if you report to a CEO, a board of directors, a nonprofit’s governing board, or a shift supervisor.  
 
Toward the end of my 27-year Army career, I was selected for a teaching assignment at the United States Military Academy at West Point (West Point). Part of the preparation for that assignment included attending 2 years of graduate school at Yale University. I finally had time to step back from the hectic operational tempo since September 11, 2001, and start thinking deeply about the leadership lessons I learned during my time in the military, particularly overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and the Republic of Korea. As I complemented my previous leadership experience and self-study with formal classroom education and self-study at Yale, I was struck by how similarly the Army and business world approach leadership.  

In retrospect, this makes sense; the conditions are different, but at the end of the day, people are people, and whether in the military or a corporation, we all want to win. It went deeper than that, though; many of the doctrinal terms and practices we use in the military are virtually interchangeable with business theory and practice. When I explained some of the Army’s other leadership terms and practices, such as Mission Command, to my business-focused civilian classmates at Yale, they were able to draw immediate parallels. Mission Command is the Army’s leadership methodology, and it consists of seven principles. It focuses on centralized planning and decentralized execution and emphasizes tenets such as trust, understanding, risk acceptance, and personal initiative—values that are useful in a military or corporate environment, especially when leading up.  
 
One of the things I do in retirement is to teach leadership development at Thayer Leadership, where I work with large and small corporations to train their senior executives and, separately, some of their entry-level leaders. Something I find fascinating about this work is how leaders at all levels and across all industries encounter many of the same challenges, but there are distinct ways in which those challenges manifest. That is evidence that wherever someone is in their personal leadership journey, leading up is a skill that every leader can use. Throughout my career, the more experience I gained as a leader, the easier it was for me to help develop my boss. As I matured, I also realized that subordinates led up with me as well. A good framework for understanding how to lead up, and something we talk about often at Thayer Leadership, is the aforementioned Mission Command. From the seven Mission Command principles (competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, commander’s intent, mission orders, disciplined initiative, and prudent risk), there are five that I believe are most pertinent to understanding how to lead up, from entry-level leaders to the C-Suite: 
 
Competence 
One of the best ways to lead up is to demonstrate competence because it helps increase trust, which leads to more flexibility and greater freedom of action. To do that, it’s important to understand, and be good at, what matters to your boss. Bosses want problem solvers, not problem makers. I tried to make a habit of never going to a boss with a problem without bringing at least two viable ways to solve it.  Because most leaders are promoted on a combination of potential and past performance, some leaders in new positions want to focus on what they are comfortable doing or what brought them success in their last leadership role. That’s fine unless it comes at the expense of the job at hand. If you want to lead up by demonstrating competence, then be good at what the boss expects you to be good at, not just what you are comfortable doing. Perhaps the best way to determine what matters to a boss is to simply ask. Another way to do it is to consider how your boss’s performance is evaluated. The better you understand your boss’s intent, the better you will be at meeting his or her expectations.  

Mutual Trust 
In the Army, we stress that trust is the foundation of everything we do, and that’s true in business as well. Effective communication; adherence to rules, norms, and expectations; being a team player; and getting good results are all ways to establish and maintain trust. Be persistent in your interactions with your boss; trusting relationships require repeated engagements and evolve over time. 
 
Trust speeds up decision-making, facilitates freedom of action, and promotes team cohesion. It is hard to build and is easily lost, which is why trust must be built and sustained deliberately. In my time in the Special Operations community, I saw many examples of how trust helped enable creative thinking and a high degree of mission accomplishment. I also saw how a lack of trust could compromise relationships and operations. We can lead up in the area of trust by showing loyalty and dedication to the company’s mission and the boss’ goals. 
 
Shared Understanding 
Effective communication is an art and a skill. Leaders should find the balance between keeping their boss sufficiently informed and not overwhelming them with too much information. One way to achieve this is through communication. Ask what is important to your boss and what is below their noise level. Find out how they manage their time and don’t waste it. One type of leader I found particularly frustrating to work with during my time in the Army was the one who was reluctant to give guidance or make decisions. A good way to lead up with a boss like this is to backbrief early and often on your plan. What I found to work well is, “Boss, I understand your intent in this situation is X, so here’s my plan to get after it.” In so doing, it compels the boss to give guidance and make a decision, either confirming your proposed course of action or giving you time to change it. As leaders, we have a responsibility to share our intent with team members and make sure it is understood. Many times, leaders think they have communicated their intent well because it is clear in their own minds. However, in the Army, we like to say we don’t know what we have said until our subordinates tell us what they heard. A quick confirmation brief immediately after receiving a task will go a long way toward ensuring all of the relevant parameters are understood by all parties involved. 
 
Disciplined Initiative 
A great way to lead up is by being proactive while also staying firmly within the boss’s intent. Some people like to refer to this as “thinking outside the box,” but I have a slightly different take. If you have a positive relationship with your boss because you have built trust, shown competence, and developed shared understanding, things like creative thinking and personal initiative are already baked in. If that is the case, then you don’t need to think outside the box, because everything you need, and everything you want to do, is already squarely inside your boss’s intent and your empowerment box, or as we call it in the Army, your left and right range limits. That is significant, because while most leaders like initiative and creative thinking, many times when senior leaders hear “outside the box,” they hear “out of bounds” or assume what you want to do is overly risky. Sometimes they may also interpret it as an indicator that a junior leader doesn’t know why the box exists in the first place and doesn’t want to take the time to learn. In the Special Operations community, we had rules, laws, and expectations that established limits to what we could do and how we could do it. Take the time to show your boss you know what are the limits of the box and what’s inside it before you start wanting to think outside it.  
 
Prudent Risk 
Learning your boss’ tolerance for risk will also help you lead up. Some bosses I had in the military evidenced a very low tolerance for risk while others were far more comfortable with empowering decision-making at lower levels to take advantage of opportunities and head off catastrophes. Managing and mitigating risk is one of the primary concerns of leaders at all levels. Generally speaking, the higher one goes up the ladder, the more time is spent thinking about risk. Bosses spend a lot of time thinking about risk, and they typically don’t like to be told “no.” So one technique I used in the Army, and in running my own business, is to not immediately say “no” to something the boss wants done but to instead express it in terms of risk. Starting with, “Boss, I can do that but…” and then proceeding to outline the associated risks is a good way to help your boss understand the situation from your perspective and help them consider the associated risk. 

Final Takeaways
Leading up is both an art and a trainable skill that can be developed through practice. It is a useful practice across the leadership spectrum which, when complemented by practices such as those explained through the Army’s Mission Command, can help create shared understanding, build trust, and manage expectations. Leaders should practice leading up, demonstrating by their example that their subordinates are allowed, even encouraged, to do the same.