Tell me about a time you had to manage up and influence decisions made by your manager or senior leadership
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What is this question about
Interviewers use this question to assess whether you can influence without formal authority, especially when the other person has more context, power, or organizational standing than you. They want to see judgment: when you chose to push back, how you understood the bigger picture, how you made your case, and whether you did it in a way that improved the outcome rather than just creating friction. Strong answers show respectful challenge, evidence-based communication, and follow-through.
Key Insights
- Managing up is not the same as 'proving leadership wrong.' You should show that you first tried to understand your manager's or leadership's goals, constraints, and risk tolerance before advocating for a different path.
- Don't tell a story where you merely raised a concern and waited. You get much more credit if you framed options, gathered evidence, adapted your communication to the audience, and stayed engaged until a decision or outcome was clear.
- Pick a story where the disagreement actually mattered. A small preference dispute makes you sound argumentative; a meaningful decision with tradeoffs lets you demonstrate judgment and influence.
What interviewers probe atlevel
Top Priority
You do not need a grand strategy; you do need more than 'I said I disagreed.'
Good examples
🟢I put together a short comparison showing the bug risk of each option and suggested a small change that fit the deadline.
🟢I ran a quick test in a development environment and used the result to explain why a simpler implementation would avoid a known issue.
Bad examples
🔴I kept bringing it up in meetings that the plan was risky, but I didn't gather examples, data, or a concrete alternative.
🔴I sent a message saying I thought my approach was better and hoped my manager would reconsider.
Strong influence combines a clear argument with usable evidence and a practical next step; weak influence is mostly repetition.
Valuable
Example answers atlevel
Great answers
On a small feature I was implementing, my manager suggested we skip a validation step so we could merge before the end of the sprint. I was worried because a similar issue had caused a customer-facing bug a few weeks earlier, so I first asked whether there was a deadline I wasn't aware of. Once I understood there was pressure to unblock another teammate, I put together a quick comparison of the two approaches and showed that adding the validation would only take a few extra hours but would prevent a likely failure case. I also suggested we keep the rest of the feature small so we could still hit the timeline. My manager agreed to that version, and the feature shipped on time without the issue I was concerned about. That experience taught me that managing up doesn't mean arguing harder; it means understanding the constraint and proposing something practical.
At my last internship, my manager wanted me to add a new dashboard widget that looked nice in the demo, but I noticed the underlying data refresh was delayed, so the numbers would often be out of date. I was new and didn’t want to push back just because I had a preference, so I gathered a few examples from test runs and showed how a customer could see one thing in the chart and a different thing in the detailed view. I suggested we either label the widget as “updated every 15 minutes” or delay it until the refresh issue was fixed. My manager appreciated that I came with a solution instead of just a problem, and we chose the clearer labeling option so the release could still move forward. It wasn’t a huge decision, but it taught me that I can influence senior people best when I focus on user trust and bring evidence to the conversation.
Poor answers
My manager wanted me to build a feature in a way I didn't agree with, so I pushed back because I thought my solution was cleaner. I explained that their approach felt a little rushed and that I preferred to do it properly. After I brought it up a couple of times, they eventually let me do it my way. It worked out fine, so I think that showed I was willing to speak up.
Question Timeline
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Late June, 2026
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