“Managing Up” As A Principal – Step 1: Get Your Supervisor on Board

One of the biggest mistakes principals make is thinking that “managing up” means simply responding to whatever comes down from above.

• Your superintendent calls…you drop what you’re doing.
• Central Office needs something…you handle it.
• Your supervisor wants to meet…you rearrange your entire day.

That’s not managing up. That’s being managed.

Managing up as a principal means proactively shaping how the people above you — your supervisor, your superintendent, and central office — use your time, so your highest-value work stays protected. 

If your district leadership can pull you away from your highest-value work at any moment, you don’t really control your job. You may have the title of principal. You may have the authority of principal. But if everyone above you can continually redirect your time, you are still operating as the school’s chief responder, not its chief leader.

The Breakthrough Coach approach asks you to change that. It requires that you learn to manage in both directions: down the chain of command (winning your staff’s support for new systems) and up the chain of command. And the first person to “manage up” is your direct supervisor. You need your direct supervisor to understand how you’re now operating differently in your front office, and you want their support for your new practices. 

But the goal isn’t to walk into your supervisor’s office and announce, “I went to The Breakthrough Coach Foundations Course! From now on please go through my secretary to reach me.” Instead, you want to create a conversation about what you’re both committed to accomplishing and what it will take to get there.

1. Ask Your Supervisor for the Conversation

Start by requesting time with your supervisor to reconnect around your mutual priorities and expectations. You might say:

“I’d like to have a conversation with you about what we’re both committed to accomplishing at my school. I think it would be valuable for us to get really clear about our priorities and how we’re going to work together. Can we schedule some time?”

This makes the conversation about the school, not about your new administrative procedures.

2. Get Clear About Your Mutual Commitments

Begin with the big picture. Tell your supervisor:

“I think you hired me because…” Explain what you believe your supervisor wants to see happen in your school and ask “Is that correct?” Go into this conversation knowing your worth: in today’s administrator shortage, you’re scarce, and that makes you valuable.

Then share your own vision: “What I want to see happen in my school is…” Talk about what you believe the school is capable of and the results you believe you can produce. Ask your supervisor about their timeline and expectations.

The goal is to reach a point where you can both say, “We’re on the same page about what we’re trying to accomplish and why it matters.”

Once that’s clear, you can move to the more practical question: How are we going to make it happen?

3. Connect Your Time to Instructional Leadership

This is where you make the case for changing how you operate. If your shared priority is improving teaching and learning, explain what that actually requires from you:

• Consistent time in classrooms
• Coaching teachers
• Participating in PLCs
• Looking at student and school data
• Designing and leading professional development
• Spending focused time on instructional leadership

Then ask, “That’s the work you want me doing, isn’t it?”

Once your supervisor agrees, the next question becomes obvious: What has to come off your plate so you can actually do that work?

4. Explain What You Can No Longer Do

You cannot simultaneously be the school’s instructional leader and personally handle every administrative demand that comes through the front office. You can’t spend your day:

• Answering every email as it arrives
• Picking up every phone call
• Responding immediately to every request from central office
• Managing your own calendar
• Scheduling your own time
• Being the first point of contact for every person, problem or “to do” in the building

There simply isn’t enough time. (It’s the same reason The Breakthrough Coach wants principals to rethink the open-door policy.) So explain the solution:

“I need someone else to manage the flow of administrative work so that I can focus on the instructional work we both agree is most important.”

5. Re-Introduce Your Secretary As Your Administrative Partner

This is where you explain how you’re going to use your front office staff differently – in effect, reimagining the school secretary role.

You might say: 

“I’ve decided to engage my secretary as the Chief Operations & Administrative Manager for my building. S/he will regulate the flow of information and access to me by:

• Handling my incoming calls
• Managing my calendar and scheduling my appointments
• Monitoring and organizing my incoming emails
• Determining what needs my attention and what can be handled elsewhere
• Managing the administrative flow of the front office

“Her/his job is to ensure my time is available for the work only I can do.”

6. Establish Clear Procedures

Finally, make your requests of your supervisor explicit. If your supervisor needs time with you, explain how you’d like that time scheduled. If they need to reach you, explain how your secretary will help facilitate that communication. If they want to visit the building or walk classrooms with you, establish the procedure for scheduling that time.

You are not putting up barriers between yourself and your supervisor. You are creating a system that protects your ability to do the job they hired you to do.

Manage Up as a Partner, Not an Employee

This conversation creates something important: mutual respect and dignity. 

“Managing up” requires you to stop thinking of yourself as simply an employee at the bottom of a one-way hierarchy – someone who has to say yes to every request that comes from above – and instead, think of yourself as a valuable player in a mutually beneficial partnership.

This requires that you get clear about what you’re both committed to accomplishing and  build the systems that protect your time to accomplish it. Then you must “manage up” so that the people above you allow you to operate in a way that has you deliver the results you’ve both agreed matter most.

Don’t wait for your supervisor to give you permission to become the leader your school needs. Have the conversation that makes it possible. 

Ready to build a system that makes this conversation possible? In the Breakthrough Coach Foundations Course, school leaders and their secretaries institute the practices that protect instructional leadership time. See upcoming Foundations Course dates.