Is It Wrong to Go Over Your Manager’s Head?
I wanted to address a question I was recently asked that got me thinking: Is it wrong to go over your manager’s head?
While it’s not wrong to go over your manager’s head, per se, there are conditions—one being that you have to go about it carefully.
What I mean by this is that you have to be politically correct, not malicious in any way. So, motive and intent for why you are choosing this route are paramount to whether or not it is wrong in spirit. Also important, just like assessing your intent, you want to go about doing so in a way that offers at least some level of visibility to your direct manager in question.
Should You Communicate Your Issues to Your Manager First?
After all, the last thing you want is to create unnecessary internal tension at the office. I mean, can we all agree that there is enough office drama swirling around these days without our adding to it if at all avoidable?
Without this mindfulness, the dreaded scenario would inevitably play out as such: You have a manager that you disagree with on some issue or another. And you go over their head to the director with zero dialogue or attempt to address it with them beforehand. Chances are, the director immediately goes to that manager and says, “Just so you know, your staff is coming to me with this…” And then? You guessed it: It turns into a whole thing.
This all boils down to corporate culture. If your organization doesn’t have the right kind of corporate culture that encourages this type of healthy, professional behavior, you are in the wrong place. Management should be creating a flat organization with a lot of layers so you can get an answer from a senior individual without your direct manager flipping out or feeling threatened. To put it bluntly: You can’t be working at a joint like that.
Essentially, we are talking about open communication, which can only exist in a corporate culture that encourages proactive behavior. And besides fostering a safe arena for employees to feel comfortable—and confident—to address issues all the way up the ladder, on a more everyday level, it simply makes for a much more enjoyable work environment to work in. Most of the people will be happy to be there. They will be encouraged, they’ll be enabled, and they’ll feel empowered to speak up and take initiative. Consequently, it’s good for them (and ultimately the higher-ups too, because happy employees make better workers, and better workers produce better results, which should make CEOs happy). It’s a full-circle win.
Effective Communication First
But back to the transparency I mentioned above with your direct manager. You may be wondering how to go about this. I get that it can be tricky, but assure you it is possible.
The number one denominator that the success of this relies upon is having effective executive communication first. And by that, I mean being able to communicate as a leader to a leader. I think of it similar to the KISS model (that keep it simple stupid kind of thing). You have to be simple, clear, and concise, and you have to have an actionable item in mind that you will take action on.
In this way, rather than just presenting the problem to an individual, you’re instead saying, “Here’s an identified issue, here’s what we need to do about it, and here’s what I’m going to do as next steps.”
Bottom line: It isn’t wrong to go over a manager’s head and directly approach a superior director, BUT you must effectively communicate the issue and approach the situation with a solution. Otherwise, you’re kind of whining. And nobody likes a whiner. Anything else is just adding to the problem already at hand.
