Stop trying to change your manager

Because you don’t have the leverage to turn your manager into a different person. Here's what to do instead.

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Read time: 7 minutes

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In the past 17 years of reporting to different managers, coaching tech operators on managing up, and teaching 1,300+ students in my course, I’ve come to realize that a lot of issues can be solved if you realize one thing:

You can’t really change your manager.

Let me explain, and share why this matters more than you think.

In a flat team structure, you and your manager might act like equals 99% of the time.

But in the 1% of of the time when there’s a difference, you need to cater to them. You mold yourself around them. This is how the manager/direct report dynamic works.

At this point, most folks say one of two things:

1. “But Wes, talking about power dynamics in this way is self-defeating. It’s so negative. It doesn’t have to be this way. I have a great relationship with my manager / direct report!”

2. “I’m not trying to change my manager, so I’m good. I don’t need to read this.”

For point #1, I’ve been fortunate to have strong relationships with managers and direct reports over the years. I’ve kept in touch with many of them as friends long after we’ve gone our separate ways. This doesn’t change the fact that there is still an underlying structural dynamic between a manager and a direct report.

For point #2, I find people think they’re not trying to change their manager, but then behave in ways that show they actually, in fact, are hoping to change their manager.

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The fact that there is a power differential isn’t good or bad. It isn’t positive or negative. It simply is.

And the fact that most people automatically think this is bad and must be fixed or can’t be spoken out loud, is why I want to talk about this topic.

The structural dynamic of a manager/direct report relationship dictates that in the 1% of the time when one person’s preferences outweigh the other’s, your manager’s preferences will take precedent.

In productive environments, 99% of an issue is decided based on objective reasoning, logic, rationale, etc. I’m a huge proponent that every person has to defend their point of view, regardless of if you’re co-founder or the most junior team member. I hate when people pull rank, or think they’re above needing to explain themselves.

I’m talking about the 1% where there’s a standstill or deadlock, or where there’s simply a philosophical or values-driven difference in how you and your manager see the world.

These situations are not necessarily solved by logic, because two people with great logic can have different worldviews, and be equally right.

Part I: “Shouldn’t we meet in the middle?” and other unproductive mental models

Your manager has to like you to bring you deeper into their inner circle. Your manager has to find you valuable to advocate for and promote you.

Your manager doesn’t quite need you in the same way. Obviously, if their team were unhappy or ineffective, this would reflect on their effectiveness as a manager/leader, which would affect their ability to advance.

But as long as their teams are relatively happy and performing well, they don’t need your advocacy in the same way that you need their advocacy. Instead, they need THEIR manager to advocate for them.

(Now, your manager can’t directly control you or any of their team members. They must get things done THROUGH you, which means they must influence. So managers are not all-powerful by any means.)

If your manager finds it difficult to communicate with you, there’s always friction, and you just don’t get along that well, it doesn’t matter if this conflict is due to their personality defects.

I repeat: It doesn't matter if the tension is technically “their fault.” You have to find a way to deal with it, or work for someone else.

This might seem obvious, but I don’t think it is. I used to subconsciously resent that I had to change myself to fit around my manager's personality.

Shouldn't we meet in the middle?

What if their personality is objectively what's causing an issue--doesn't that count for something?

Why do THEY get to be how they are, but I have to change myself to fit around them?

It all felt… unjust.

This was an unproductive line of thinking for one reason: I didn’t have the leverage to change my manager into a different person.

Part II: How to apply this to your relationship with your manager

So if you can’t change your manager, what does this mean? Here’s what you can do:

1. Structural dynamics and incentives win over “fairness”

If you expect “fairness” to win out, you will always feel slighted if it doesn’t.

So realizing that my manager’s preferences will take precedence was freeing for me. If “fairness” were the dominating factor, perhaps they should change. But since the structural dynamic is the dominating factor, it explains why they don’t have to change.

When you understand that, you can relax and stop blaming yourself.

2. Ideally, you should be simpatico from the start

Years ago, I read that you can never break in shoes, and when I saw that, I thought omg this is truth. Most of my shoes that fit, actually fit from the beginning.

It’s a matter of degrees. When I thought “I can break in these shoes,” I would buy shoes that clearly weren’t the shape of my actual foot, rubbed my ankle, were too loose/too tight, and think, “Oh, I can break these in.”

No. No, my friend, you cannot.

What “you can break shoes in” really means is, sometimes, if the shoe is the right material, you can change the shoe by, like 10% maximum. That’s as much as they’ll change to accommodate your foot. Otherwise, the shoe is the shoe. It is the way it is.

Also, to continue this analogy probably further than it needs to go:

Even for shoes that were comfortable from the beginning, they STILL kind of hurt after 10 hours of wear. Even the best fit/most comfortable shoes, after the demands of reality and usage, were still a little uncomfortable.

This means you really need to find shoes that almost feel laughably comfortable when you try them on, because when it interacts with reality, you will need that level of fit to make it work.

I know we often don’t get to choose our managers, but this was still valuable for me because it made me more intentional about the kind of people I want to work with.

3 Assess your level of leverage more accurately

We waste a lot of energy trying to change things we can’t change. Once I stopped subconsciously trying to change my manager, I could redirect that energy into areas where I could affect change.

This is not about “being more positive.” It’s about accurately assessing your leverage. If you misunderstand or miscalculate where you have leverage, you expend your energy accordingly.

Where people go wrong is when they THINK they have more leverage than they actually do. For example, when a salesperson slides into your DMs and demands to hop on a 30-min call, they have misread their leverage.

4. Try to make the most of your time together

I've had the most productive relationships with my managers when I've accepted them as who they are, and tried to learn as much from them as I could.

Instead of trying to force them to embody the type of ideal manager I wanted, I saw them for who they are and tried to appreciate the worldviews they had.

To do this, I tried to adopt their worldviews as a “hat” or “lens” I could take on and off. What was it like to make decisions through their lens? If I prioritized the things they prioritized, how would that impact what I did and how I did it?

You won’t report to your manager forever. You can take the best parts of what you learn from them and use it to inform how you want to lead yourself.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you in two weeks on Wednesday at 8am ET.

Wes

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✨ Course update: Executive Communication and Influence for Senior ICs and Managers

Last week, I wrapped up an incredible two days with the August cohort. Here’s what students who just finished the course are saying:

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