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Managing Up vs. Kissing Up

Authored by Kristen Wilhelm | Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Key Takeaways:

• Managing up is the deliberate effort to build a productive and positive working relationship with your boss to improve cooperation and collaboration between yourself, your boss, and the organization
• Kissing up, or sucking up, focuses on personal advantage through flattery or excessive agreement
• Effective managing up involves clear communication, constructive feedback, and aligning with your leader to achieve shared goals
• While kissing up may create short-term approval, it ultimately hurts one’s reputation within the organization

Few workplace skills are as misunderstood as managing up. Many professionals worry that building a strong relationship with their boss will be seen as political and self-serving; however, understanding the difference between managing up and kissing up is essential for building productive leadership relationships and advancing your career.

What is Managing Up?

In Managing Up: How to Move Up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss, Mary Abbajay defines managing up as the conscious, deliberate development and maintenance of effective working relationships with supervisors and others higher in the chain of command.

It is a proactive effort to increase cooperation and collaboration between individuals who often have different perspectives and uneven levels of power. At its core, managing up is about working strategically with your boss to achieve the best possible outcomes for you, for your leader, and for the organization.

Managing up is about you taking charge of your workplace experience.

Related reading: Manage Up, Down, & Across For Career Success

What is Kissing Up?

Kissing up, or sucking up, centers on personal advantage rather than shared success. While it may look like managing up on a surface-level, the underlying motivation is different.

Kissing up prioritizes impression over impact. It often involves excessive flattery, public displays of agreement, or avoiding honest feedback to stay in a leader’s good graces. The goal of kissing up is not stronger collaboration or better results. The main goal is personal positioning.

5 Critical Differences Between Managing Up and Kissing Up

While managing up and kissing up may appear similar at first glance, the motivations and long-term outcomes behind them are very different. The distinctions below highlight what separates strategic collaboration from self-serving workplace behavior.

1. Intent
The clearest difference between managing up and kissing up lies in the intent. Managing up is driven by a desire for mutual success, aligning with your leader to improve outcomes for the team and organization. Kissing up, by contrast, is driven by personal gain. The focus is not on advancing the work, but on advancing yourself.

2. Communication Style
Managing up involves direct, solution-oriented communication. It requires clarity about expectations and the willingness to raise concerns respectfully. The goal is transparency and alignment. Kissing up often relies on flattery, selective agreement, or public displays of support that lack substance. Difficult conversations are avoided. Disagreement is suppressed in favor of approval.

3. Relationship to Feedback
Effective managing up involves the ability to disagree constructively. Professionals who manage up understand that respectful debate can enhance decision-making. They bring thoughtful perspectives to the table. Kissing up, on the other hand, avoids discomfort. An individual will filter feedback to protect their favor. Their concerns likely go unspoken. Over time, this weakens both decision-making quality and leadership effectiveness.

4. Focus of Results
Managing up prioritizes results. The emphasis is on anticipating needs and helping the leader succeed in measurable ways. Kissing up prioritizes optics. Visibility may increase, but contribution does not necessarily follow. Effort is spent on appearing supportive rather than meaningfully advancing the work.

5. Long-Term Impact
Over time, managing up builds respect and trust. Leaders come to rely on individuals who anticipate needs and prioritize the organization’s shared success. Kissing up may produce short-term approval, but it often damages long-term reputation. Colleagues notice inconsistencies. Leaders recognize a lack of depth. Credibility is difficult to rebuild once it is lost.

Understanding the difference between managing up and kissing up is essential for anyone who wants to build a successful career and strong relationships with their leadership. Remind yourself that managing up is not about being a sycophant or about workplace politics. Managing up is the action of intentionally strengthening your communication and expectations with your leadership so that you can succeed, your boss can succeed, and the organization can succeed.