Managing Up Like Reddington: How to Talk About Marketing With Your Executive Director (Without Losing the Room)
- Tanesha Ford
- Mar 28
- 4 min read
As someone who will absolutely Google the ending of a suspenseful movie while I’m still watching it, I’ve made peace with the fact that I lean toward the familiar. I rewatch shows. A lot. I’ve watched the entire series of Monk all the way through at least twelve times. Lately, I’ve been back in The Blacklist, and listen… Red has my mind working.
The way he manages people without raising his voice, without scrambling, without overexplaining. It’s giving A-Team level planning with a whole lot more calm. And sitting with that, I started thinking about the parallels. The way Red manages up to the FBI feels really familiar when you’re working in marketing and trying to manage up to your Executive Director.
That’s what this week’s piece is about. We’re in week four of the 14-week Alignment Series, looking at the real pain points small nonprofit arts organizations run into and the opportunities sitting right beside them, especially when it comes to how we talk about marketing with the folks leading the organization.
There’s a moment that comes around in just about every nonprofit arts organization.
Ticket sales start looking shaky. The room gets tight. Your Executive Director starts asking questions that land a little sharper than usual. And suddenly, marketing is at the center of the conversation, whether you planned for it or not.
You walk in ready to explain what’s happening.
You’ve got the numbers. You’ve got the context. You’ve got the plan.
And somehow, by the time you finish talking, it feels like nobody heard you.
That gap right there; that’s the work of managing up.
Talking About Marketing Means Talking About Outcomes
When you’re managing up, especially with your Executive Director, the conversation about marketing has to start where they live.
They are thinking about revenue, stability, and what they are walking into at the next board meeting.
So when ticket sales dip and they ask what’s going on, they are not asking for a download. They are asking for direction.
And this is where a lot of strong marketing leads get tripped up.
We walk in speaking fluent marketing, leading with metrics, channel performance, and audience behavior.
Meanwhile, your Executive Director is listening for one thing.
“What does this mean for the organization right now?”
Managing up means answering that question before they have to ask it twice.
Reddington Wouldn’t Walk In With a Spreadsheet
There’s a reason the Blacklist reference lands so clean here.
Reddington never shows up talking in raw data. He doesn’t list everything he knows. He tells the story that matters most in that moment.
He makes it legible, urgent, and most importantly, useful.
That’s managing up in marketing.
When you walk into your Executive Director’s office and lead with: “Engagement is up, click-through is steady, conversion is soft…”
You’re asking them to translate for themselves.
That’s a heavy lift for someone already carrying the whole organization.
A different approach sounds more like: “We’re seeing folks hesitate right at the point of purchase. We can tighten that up this week and recover some of these sales before opening.”
Same information. Different translation.
Now your Executive Director knows what’s happening and what comes next.
When Executive Directors Panic About Ticket Sales
Let’s stay with that moment, because it’s real.
When ticket sales are down, your Executive Director is looking for a sense of control.
And managing up means giving them that without overpromising while connecting the dots for them in real time.
You might say: “We’re seeing strong interest, but folks are waiting longer to commit. We’re adjusting messaging to create a little more urgency this week.”
Or: “This audience usually converts closer to the date. We’re tracking that and pushing targeted reminders so we don’t lose them.”
You are still telling the truth. You are just telling it in a way that moves the room forward.
Translating Marketing Timelines So Folks Can Stay With You
Marketing timelines can be a sticking point in conversations with your Executive Director.
YOU know the long game matters. You’ve seen what happens when audience development gets cut short or campaigns get pulled too early.
But saying “this takes time” rarely lands the way you want it to.
Managing up calls for a different kind of framing. It calls for you to tie your timeline to something your Executive Director already cares about.
Something like: “This campaign is doing double duty. It’s supporting current sales and building the audience we rely on next quarter.”
Or: “This is the part of the cycle where we see interest grow before purchases follow. We’re right on track for that pattern.”
Now your timeline has context and "weight".
It’s easier to stay the course when folks understand what they’re looking at.
Setting Expectations Early Makes Managing Up Easier Later
A lot of the tension around managing up shows up in moments of stress, but it usually starts much earlier.
When expectations around marketing are not clearly set, every result becomes a surprise. And surprises in nonprofit leadership tend to come with pressure.
Part of managing up is building a shared understanding before anything launches.
That can look like:
Naming what success will look like
Talking through what you will be watching along the way
Being clear about what might shift and why
This is about making sure your Executive Director is not seeing your work for the first time when the stakes are high.
Managing up gets a whole lot smoother when nobody feels caught off guard.
Let’s Call It Plain
Managing up in marketing is less about proving your expertise and more about translating it. Like Reddington briefing the FBI, your success depends on making what you see legible, urgent, and actionable to the people in charge. You already know your work, but the real question is whether the person leading your organization can see what you see clearly enough to stand behind it.
And when you’re talking about marketing with your Executive Director, especially when the pressure is on, it’s worth asking yourself: are you trying to prove you are right, or are you trying to help the organization move forward? Those aren’t always the same conversation, and managing up asks you to be intentional about which one you’re having.
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