Managing Up: The Skill No One Teaches. But Every Future MD Needs

In most investment banking training, you’re taught how to model, how to run a process, how to manage juniors. What you’re not really taught is this: How to manage the people above you.

Yet if you speak to senior bankers about who they promote, support, and sponsor, one theme comes up again and again: “They make my life easier, not harder.”

That’s managing up. And it’s one of the most under-rated leadership skills in the industry.

What Managing Up Really Means

Managing up is not politics. It’s not flattery. It’s not trying to be liked. It’s the ability to:

• Understand what your seniors are solving for

• Anticipate needs and see around corners

• Communicate to reduce work and create leverage

• And ultimately takes weight off senior leaders

As Aaron Schwimmer, Partner at MTS Health Partners put it:

“The primary function of the job early in your banking career is to take as much as possible off the senior person’s plate.”

When you manage up well, you become the person senior leaders want on every deal.

Understand Their World, Not Just Your Task

Most mid-level bankers only see their slice of the work. Future leaders make a conscious effort to understand:

• Which deals are truly critical for the MD / Partner

• Where the real pressure is coming from (client, internal, timing, politics)

• What the senior person is trying to optimise: fees, relationship, league tables, firm positioning, cross-sell, internal visibility

Once you see their world, you can align your effort with what actually matters.

Develop Foresight and The Ability to “See Around Corners”

As Maren Winnick, Senior MD at Evercore shared: “Successful VPs preparing for senior roles develop foresight.”

Managing up means you don’t wait for instructions — you think ahead:

• What will the client ask next?

• What page will the CEO challenge?

• What analysis will the MD need for the board?

• What could derail the timeline?

Anticipation is a leadership signal. Reaction is a junior instinct.

Learn Their Communication Style and Adapt

Some seniors want a one-line WhatsApp update. Others want a structured email. Some want to talk it through live. Managing up means you:

• Notice how they ask questions

• Pay attention to what they latch onto

• Match your communication to their preferences

This isn’t performative. It’s efficient. You’re showing them: “I know how you like to operate. I’m tuned into that.”

Communicate With Clarity and Alignment

Once you understand the style, delivery is important. Junior bankers often communicate to prove their work. VPs communicate to provide clarity, alignment, and expectation management.

Senior leaders are juggling multiple deals, clients, travel, internal priorities, and strategic visibility. They aren’t in the weeds and they shouldn’t be. So your communication becomes the dashboard they rely on.

Great VPs send updates that answer:

• Where are we?

• What’s coming next?

• What’s at risk?

• Do you need anything from me?

Concise. Predictable. Confidence-building.

Bring Solutions, Not Just Problems

Senior leaders expect issues. Deals are full of them. The difference between someone who is trusted and someone who is managed is how they present themselves.

Not:

“We have a problem.”

But:

“Here’s the issue. Here are two paths forward. Here’s my recommendation and why.”

That sentence tells a senior leader everything they need to know:

• You’re thinking strategically

• You understand implications

• You’re not seeking direction, you’re managing the process

Make Life Easier for the People Above You

This may be the simplest definition of managing up:

You remove friction instead of creating it.

That looks like:

• Clean agendas before meetings

• Structured updates after calls

• Flagging risks before others see them

• Sending documents that are client-ready, not “first-look rough”

• Preparing seniors for the questions they’ll be asked before they’re asked

• Don’t schedule unnecessary calls

• Don’t drag them into internal debates you can settle

When senior leaders stop checking your work, you stop being a VP. You start becoming a future MD.

Final Thoughts

Managing up is not about playing games. It’s about understanding that leadership is a relationship and that the way you work with senior people either:

Multiplies their impact, or quietly drains it!

The people who rise fastest in investment banking tend to have three things:

• Competence

• Sponsorship

• And the ability to manage up so that sponsors enjoy advocating for them.

So ask yourself:

• Do I make life easier or harder for the people above me?

• Would they fight to have me on their deals?

• If my sponsor were asked privately about me, what would they say?

Because in this industry, managing up isn’t a soft skill. It’s a leadership skill.

Other Great Resources