A great manager is someone who communicates clearly in both directions: they make sure their team understands what's expected of them, and they also make sure upper management knows what the team is doing and what it needs. This sounds simple, but it's surprisingly rare. Most managers either focus too much on managing up and trying to look good to their own bosses, or they focus so much on supporting their team day-to-day that they forget to represent the team's interests to leadership. In the latter case, the team might feel supported in the moment, but they miss out on resources, recognition, or opportunities that only come when someone is advocating for them at higher levels. The best managers do both, and they do it consistently. They don't play favorites or change their story depending on who's listening. Their team knows where they stand, and so does their boss. This kind of consistency and authenticity builds trust, which is the foundation for everything else a manager does.

Of course, there are managers who try to do the opposite: by telling each side exactly what they want to hear, regardless of the truth. I once knew a manager who was so committed to this approach that the team and upper management ended up with completely different versions of reality. For a while, everyone was happy. At some point, the stories collapsed and nobody could quite figure out how things had gotten so confusing. Trust, as you might guess, was in short supply after that.

Trust isn't just a perk of great management, it's what makes ambitious work possible. If people trust their manager, they'll take risks and try things that might not work, because they know failure won't be used against them. Most organizations are so afraid of risk that they never find out what their people could do if they felt safe to try. But again, trust has to go both ways: a manager needs the trust of their team, but also the trust of their own bosses. When upper management trusts a manager, they give the team room to experiment and back them when things get tough. The best managers know how to build and protect trust in both directions, so their teams can do things that would otherwise be impossible.

If you want to know whether someone is a great manager, ask the people who work for them and the people they report to. If both groups trust them, you've probably found one of the good ones.