Tech Leadership Tuesday: Managing Up with Lara Hogan and Lena Reinhard

You can be an excellent manager, a sharp technical leader, or a trusted team member and still find yourself invisible to the people making decisions above you. You’ve heard you should “manage up,” but it feels like shameless self-promotion or playing politics. In this Tech Leadership Tuesday, Lara Hogan and Lena Reinhard will help you see why that view is getting in your way. Managing up is about making sure the work you and your team are doing is understood, valued, and resourced by the leaders who control what happens next. It’s how you build credibility with senior leadership, navigate difficult dynamics with your own manager, and advocate effectively for your team. Whether you’re a first-time engineering manager finding your footing with a skip-level or a staff engineer learning to influence decisions you don’t own, this session will give you concrete approaches grounded in what actually works.

Tech Leadership Tuesday is a monthly live event for people and technology leaders. Each episode focuses on a practical challenge in engineering leadership, explored through conversation between host and guest. You’ll hear about real situations, common mistakes, and what actually works, and you'll have the opportunity to ask Lena and Lara your own questions during the session.

What you’ll learn and how to apply it:

• Communicate your team’s work in terms that resonate with senior leadership
• Build trust with your manager and skip-level before you need something from them
• Surface disagreement or push back on a decision without damaging the relationship
• Learn what to do when your manager is conflict-averse, unavailable, or simply not advocating for you
• Make a case for your team’s needs in a compelling way