They Think You're Smart. They Just Don't Think You Get Business.

Photo by Rodeo Project Management Software on Unsplash

At some point in your career as a CTO or CPO, you will be in a room where a decision is being made. A real one — about strategy, about money, about direction. And you will realise, with a quiet sinking feeling, that you were not really invited to that room. You were summoned to explain something technical and then politely managed back out.

That's when you know the managing up isn't working.

The fundamental misunderstanding

Most non-technical leaders don't think tech people are stupid. Let me be clear about that. They know exactly how smart you are. They've seen what you can build.

What they believe — and this is the part nobody says directly — is that smart and business-savvy are two different things. And that tech people, however brilliant, live in the first category. So when the real conversations happen — the ones with the board, the ones about market positioning, the ones about where the company is going in three years — those are handled by the grown-ups. You'll be briefed on the outcome.

This happens in 110% of companies. I'm not exaggerating.

And here's what makes it maddening: they're not wrong about a lot of tech people. There are plenty of brilliant engineers and product leads who genuinely don't think in business terms. But if you happen to be different — if you actually do think about the market, the competition, the revenue model, the board pressure — you still get lumped in with the crowd. Because until proven otherwise, you're the tech chap.

What managing up actually means

Managing up is not about politics. It's not about schmoozing or being liked or playing the game.

It's about making sure the expectations placed on you, your team, and your work are grounded in reality. About earning the right amount of trust — enough to move fast — and the right amount of challenge — enough to stay sharp. About making clear to the people above you that they are as much part of the problem as they are part of the solution.

You are the umbrella protecting your team from the rain. That's part of the job, and you should take it seriously.

But you are not a hole that people can shovel anything into and expect you to smile. Knowing the difference — and being able to hold that line without blowing up the relationship — that is the actual skill.

The language problem

When managing up goes wrong, it rarely looks like a confrontation. It looks like two people in a room who aren't quite having the same conversation.

The non-technical founder is thinking about growth, about investors, about the competitive landscape. The CTO is thinking about architecture, technical debt, team capacity. Both are right. Neither is being heard. And because the CEO controls the agenda, the CTO eventually stops being invited to set it.

This is not a technology problem. It is a language problem.

And the fix is not to become less technical. It's to become genuinely bilingual.

The cost of not doing this

Here's what nobody tells you when you're heads-down building: careers don't stall dramatically. They stall quietly.

You stop getting invited to certain meetings. The interesting problems go elsewhere. The company makes decisions that affect your team without really asking you. And one day you look up and realise your job has become execution — pure, clean, bounded execution — with none of the ambiguity, none of the stakes, none of the parts that made you want to lead in the first place.

That is the cost of poor managing up. Not getting fired. Getting sidelined.

And the thing about being sidelined is that it feels like everyone else's fault. The CEO doesn't listen. The board only cares about numbers. Nobody understands what the tech team actually does. All of that may be true. But none of it changes your situation.

If you are not at those tables, your career will not move forward. And your job — however well you do it — will feel increasingly small. You will be used as a variable in other people's equations. Plugged in when needed, optimised for cost, replaced when inconvenient.

The alternative is becoming part of the equation itself. Having a say in what gets built and why. Being the person in the room who shapes the direction, not just executes it.

That is worth fighting for. And managing up is how you fight.

How to earn your seat at the table

Show — every time, without exception — that you understand tech as a business function and business as a technical constraint.

Think the way a CEO thinks. Not instead of thinking like a CTO or CPO, but in addition to it. When you walk into a room, bring the board's question with you, not just the engineering answer. Make them feel that you understand the pressure they're under, the constraints the investors are imposing, the thing that keeps them up at night.

And then shape the conversation so that tech is not a department that executes decisions — it's a function that makes them.

That's how you stop being the poor tech chap who gets briefed on outcomes. That's how you get into the room where the decisions actually happen.