April 17, 2025 • 10 mins
Description:
How To Lead from Any Seat on the Team — Managing Up for a Stronger Studio Culture
Hosted by Mike Arce, CEO of Loud Rumor
Whether you’re the owner of a gym, a front desk manager, or part of the coaching team, this episode is for you—and it’s one your entire team should hear.
Mike Arce breaks down one of the most overlooked leadership skills in business today: managing up.
You’ll learn:
– Why great teams don’t just manage down… they lead in all directions
– How to strengthen your studio’s culture without changing your title
– What most employees misunderstand about their leaders—and how to build real trust
– The mindset shift that turns frustration into influence
If you're ready to create a gym culture where communication is clear, leaders grow stronger, and everyone feels seen—this episode will show you how.
Share it with your team. Set a time to discuss it. And start building the kind of studio people never want to leave.
💡 Want help improving gym retention? Visit loudrumor.com/discover to schedule a call.
To learn more go to LoudRumor.com
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Mike Arce- CEO & Founder of Loud Rumor
Loud Rumor- Where the Best Gyms Go to Grow
LinkedIn:
Mike Arce: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikearcelive/
Loud Rumor: https://www.linkedin.com/company/loud-rumor
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This episode of the GSD show is a unique one, and it's one that I'm very excited about. It's not just for the owners or for the managers, it's for everybody on the team and it's around managing up and I want everyone on the team to hear this. So if you're on a team at a gym, whether you're the owner, the manager or an employee, I would like it if you could take this and share it with everybody in your team.
(00:20):
Just text everybody the link to this particular episode, because if everyone could get dialed in on this, everyone does much better. Now, what I will tell you is everyone is very, very comfortable with the idea of managing down from a manager. I know who's below me on the organizational chart. I know who reports to me and I will manage that.
Everyone knows that some people even know how to manage across or laterally. So what that means is if we know the rules, the company, or when we rack the weights, we put the weights back that all the numbers on the weights need to be facing the same direction. But one person doesn't put the weights back that way. Maybe there are some companies you might be one of them that calls it out says, Hey Chris.
(01:01):
Yeah, hey, just remember to rock the weights back with everything's facing the right way, okay? Oh, yep. Sorry, I didn't see that. Right. So some companies are doing that fewer, but some are. Some people are afraid to do that. It's not a great team. And you're definitely not a great player on the team. If you're afraid to do it, you don't because you're afraid of what they might think about you for holding them accountable.
(01:22):
But very, very few companies know how to manage up. But these companies are the ones that grow the best and the fastest, and they have the most fun doing it. The culture is dynamic. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Hi, my name is Mike RC, CEO of Cloud Rumer, where the best ships go to grow. And we've now worked with over 3000 gyms all over the world within, 12 different countries, 60 different franchise brands and hundreds of independent brands.
(01:50):
If you want to learn more about how to work with us, go to Cloud room.com and schedule a call. All right. So managing up, what is this thing that we're talking about? Managing up starts with the understanding that the person that is managing you is a human being just like you. He has marriage problems every once in a while, just like you.
She has a daughter that's getting bullied sometimes, just like you. They have a mom or dad that's ill and is in the hospital sometimes, just like you. And so because of that, they might have off days just like you. And if you're having an off day and you know you were off and you may not have the best attitude today, or maybe you just maybe even know that you did something unintentionally, you kind of had a little bit of a short response.
(02:41):
You probably hope that you don't get judged by that action. It probably be nice if your manager or your leader said, hey, Chris, yeah, it's a check on you. You okay? How are you doing? How's Chris? Yeah. I'm good. Why do you ask? I know you just don't seem like yourself today. You seem a little off. Like maybe, you know, bothering you.
(03:04):
It could be nothing. Could be me. Just want to check on you. Yeah. My wife and I were up until four in the morning last night. Just kind of arguing. We talked it out. It took till for the morning, but then I had to be up at like five in the morning, so I just didn't sleep at all.
You know, I'm just a little off anal. Probably. Okay. Yeah. That right there is a great manager, a great person that's checking in on his team. But remember that owner, if you report to an owner or manager, they might have that too. And so if they ran a meeting and all of a sudden they said something might have been a little off, put it.
(03:42):
Well we could judge. It would be like, geez, what a jerk. Like, who leads like that? We could do that. We could judge them by their actions, or we can say, hey, boss. Yeah. Hey. Just wanted to check on you. Are you okay? Is everything all right? Yeah. Why? I don't know, normally, you know, meetings are pretty solid.
It feel like you were a little off today. Did you feel like you. What do you mean? To explain it? I just want to check on him. It could just be me, but I just wanted to make sure you're okay. Oh, my gosh. For all the owners listening right now, your heart melted knowing that an employee checked on you to see if you're okay.
(04:22):
If everything's all right with you. So, employees, for you listening. It feels so good to finally have somebody ask. I know me as an owner of a few businesses, but I have my employees check on me. Hey, Mike, are you okay? How are you doing? How's everything going with you? My heart melts because I don't get that that much.
(04:43):
And what I do get it. It's amazing. I know I'm being cared about. I know people want to make sure I'm okay. Makes me trust them more. You know, it's funny. Everybody wants their leader to trust them more. But we don't do the things that actually create trust. That's one of them. So checking in is great. Another thing, if we see our leader, a manager, is doing something that great again, we can judge them by their actions.
(05:11):
We can go to another employee and talk about it and say, hey, could you believe we did this? Who does that? Why would you do like that? That's how you're supposed to do it. You could do that, or you could do what you would want your employee to do and go up and say, hey, can I share some with you?
Yeah. I'm not a little, you know, manager role. So there could be a reason you're doing it I don't know. So I, I'm definitely not here to judge. I just kind of wanted to share how this one thing that you're doing kind of makes me and some others feel. And, if you want to keep doing it, keep doing it.
(05:44):
That's okay. But I just felt like I wanted to bring it up. I just at least wanted you to be aware. I want to be aware. Now, some of you listening are going. I would never do that. I would never do that. I understand, it's scary, but man, does that leader want to hear that. Just like you would want to.
If your team was thinking something, they were thinking something negative about the way you do something. What did you want somebody to come in just pull your side, close door behind them and just sit down and have a adult adult conversation and share that course. You would you would have wanted to just talk about it with everybody else.
(06:21):
Just keep it bottled up. So become that person. We all want to work for the best leader possible. If we're going to work for a boss, let's make sure it's a great one. Well, we can keep bouncing from job to job because our boss isn't that great. You know, it's funny that people don't know this, but when you ask people that, number one reason they quit their job, it's because of the person they work for.
(06:45):
Most people don't quit the work or the company. They quit their leader. So we keep bouncing from job to job until we find this mythical perfect leader out there that's just waiting for someone like us to come and walk in and be led perfectly. Or we could help build one. We can help develop one. That's what managing up is.
(07:05):
Managing up is really caring about your leader, your manager, remembering they're a really real human being. Just like you'll be one day when you take that role and really helping them see you around corners, seeing them see thing, helping them see things that they don't see because they're not in the same position that you're in. Helping them get an understanding of what people are thinking and feeling.
(07:26):
Because maybe from their position, they're unable to hear it and see it the same way that you could when you helped develop the leader and the the culture that you're a part of, you're truly contributing to the great company that you actually want to work for a great company. But when you just keep it to yourself and hope that everything just gets better on its own, hope the leader or the manager becomes a better leader or manager, or hope that the current manager eventually gets fired, another manager gets put in place so you could work for somebody better, or hope that the culture gets better one day so that you could be a beneficiary of
(08:03):
it instead of a contributor to it. You could do that, but you might find yourself waiting a very long time, or worse, continuing to go from job to job to job. The average employee today can't keep a job for ten months, whether it's because they get fired or, believe it or not, the biggest reason they quit. And again, the number one reason people quit is because the person they work for, not the company or what it does.
(08:30):
So don't become a statistic. You don't want to be the average. Average sucks. You don't want to be the most common thing. You want to be the rare that small percent and not the small percent at the bottom, but the small percent at the top. The ones that raise the standard for what it means to be a player on a team.
I would love it if all of you could really listen to this episode. You share with everybody owners. Share this with your team. Let them understand that not only do you share this perspective, but that you welcome it, that you embrace it. Because just by sharing this link with them, it helps them know that you're okay with this and that it's okay for them to come up and talk to you and help manage up.
(09:14):
It helped develop you as a leader as well. Employees, share this with your leaders. If you're not sure if they heard it yet, share with them and just say, hey, are you open to this type of communication between us? If if all of you can really start speaking the same language, it'd be great. So best process I believe for this is number one.
(09:36):
Share it with everyone on the team. It's literally ten minutes long. And number two, set a meeting where all of you can maybe discuss it, whether it's on zoom or in person or whatever. Maybe a combination of both, but let's all discuss it. Hey, what do we think? How can we make this exist in our in our company?
How can this live and breathe in our culture? And I hope, like, I know I've seen it happen with other companies, I do this. I hope it makes your company a better place to work. That gets more shit done and everybody gets to grow in their careers better, faster, easier and has a blast unit. Thanks so much for listening.
(10:11):
Again, if you want to learn more about how to work with us, go to louder McCombs. Schedule a call and we'll see you next time.
This episode of the GSD show is a unique one, and it's one that I'm very excited about. It's not just for the owners or for the managers, it's for everybody on the team and it's around managing up and I want everyone on the team to hear this. So if you're on a team at a gym, whether you're the owner, the manager or an employee, I would like it if you could take this and share it with everybody in your team.
(00:20):
Just text everybody the link to this particular episode, because if everyone could get dialed in on this, everyone does much better. Now, what I will tell you is everyone is very, very comfortable with the idea of managing down from a manager. I know who's below me on the organizational chart. I know who reports to me and I will manage that.
Everyone knows that some people even know how to manage across or laterally. So what that means is if we know the rules, the company, or when we rack the weights, we put the weights back that all the numbers on the weights need to be facing the same direction. But one person doesn't put the weights back that way. Maybe there are some companies you might be one of them that calls it out says, Hey Chris.
(01:01):
Yeah, hey, just remember to rock the weights back with everything's facing the right way, okay? Oh, yep. Sorry, I didn't see that. Right. So some companies are doing that fewer, but some are. Some people are afraid to do that. It's not a great team. And you're definitely not a great player on the team. If you're afraid to do it, you don't because you're afraid of what they might think about you for holding them accountable.
(01:22):
But very, very few companies know how to manage up. But these companies are the ones that grow the best and the fastest, and they have the most fun doing it. The culture is dynamic. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Hi, my name is Mike RC, CEO of Cloud Rumer, where the best ships go to grow. And we've now worked with over 3000 gyms all over the world within, 12 different countries, 60 different franchise brands and hundreds of independent brands.
(01:50):
If you want to learn more about how to work with us, go to Cloud room.com and schedule a call. All right. So managing up, what is this thing that we're talking about? Managing up starts with the understanding that the person that is managing you is a human being just like you. He has marriage problems every once in a while, just like you.
She has a daughter that's getting bullied sometimes, just like you. They have a mom or dad that's ill and is in the hospital sometimes, just like you. And so because of that, they might have off days just like you. And if you're having an off day and you know you were off and you may not have the best attitude today, or maybe you just maybe even know that you did something unintentionally, you kind of had a little bit of a short response.
(02:41):
You probably hope that you don't get judged by that action. It probably be nice if your manager or your leader said, hey, Chris, yeah, it's a check on you. You okay? How are you doing? How's Chris? Yeah. I'm good. Why do you ask? I know you just don't seem like yourself today. You seem a little off. Like maybe, you know, bothering you.
(03:04):
It could be nothing. Could be me. Just want to check on you. Yeah. My wife and I were up until four in the morning last night. Just kind of arguing. We talked it out. It took till for the morning, but then I had to be up at like five in the morning, so I just didn't sleep at all.
You know, I'm just a little off anal. Probably. Okay. Yeah. That right there is a great manager, a great person that's checking in on his team. But remember that owner, if you report to an owner or manager, they might have that too. And so if they ran a meeting and all of a sudden they said something might have been a little off, put it.
(03:42):
Well we could judge. It would be like, geez, what a jerk. Like, who leads like that? We could do that. We could judge them by their actions, or we can say, hey, boss. Yeah. Hey. Just wanted to check on you. Are you okay? Is everything all right? Yeah. Why? I don't know, normally, you know, meetings are pretty solid.
It feel like you were a little off today. Did you feel like you. What do you mean? To explain it? I just want to check on him. It could just be me, but I just wanted to make sure you're okay. Oh, my gosh. For all the owners listening right now, your heart melted knowing that an employee checked on you to see if you're okay.
(04:22):
If everything's all right with you. So, employees, for you listening. It feels so good to finally have somebody ask. I know me as an owner of a few businesses, but I have my employees check on me. Hey, Mike, are you okay? How are you doing? How's everything going with you? My heart melts because I don't get that that much.
(04:43):
And what I do get it. It's amazing. I know I'm being cared about. I know people want to make sure I'm okay. Makes me trust them more. You know, it's funny. Everybody wants their leader to trust them more. But we don't do the things that actually create trust. That's one of them. So checking in is great. Another thing, if we see our leader, a manager, is doing something that great again, we can judge them by their actions.
(05:11):
We can go to another employee and talk about it and say, hey, could you believe we did this? Who does that? Why would you do like that? That's how you're supposed to do it. You could do that, or you could do what you would want your employee to do and go up and say, hey, can I share some with you?
Yeah. I'm not a little, you know, manager role. So there could be a reason you're doing it I don't know. So I, I'm definitely not here to judge. I just kind of wanted to share how this one thing that you're doing kind of makes me and some others feel. And, if you want to keep doing it, keep doing it.
(05:44):
That's okay. But I just felt like I wanted to bring it up. I just at least wanted you to be aware. I want to be aware. Now, some of you listening are going. I would never do that. I would never do that. I understand, it's scary, but man, does that leader want to hear that. Just like you would want to.
If your team was thinking something, they were thinking something negative about the way you do something. What did you want somebody to come in just pull your side, close door behind them and just sit down and have a adult adult conversation and share that course. You would you would have wanted to just talk about it with everybody else.
(06:21):
Just keep it bottled up. So become that person. We all want to work for the best leader possible. If we're going to work for a boss, let's make sure it's a great one. Well, we can keep bouncing from job to job because our boss isn't that great. You know, it's funny that people don't know this, but when you ask people that, number one reason they quit their job, it's because of the person they work for.
(06:45):
Most people don't quit the work or the company. They quit their leader. So we keep bouncing from job to job until we find this mythical perfect leader out there that's just waiting for someone like us to come and walk in and be led perfectly. Or we could help build one. We can help develop one. That's what managing up is.
(07:05):
Managing up is really caring about your leader, your manager, remembering they're a really real human being. Just like you'll be one day when you take that role and really helping them see you around corners, seeing them see thing, helping them see things that they don't see because they're not in the same position that you're in. Helping them get an understanding of what people are thinking and feeling.
(07:26):
Because maybe from their position, they're unable to hear it and see it the same way that you could when you helped develop the leader and the the culture that you're a part of, you're truly contributing to the great company that you actually want to work for a great company. But when you just keep it to yourself and hope that everything just gets better on its own, hope the leader or the manager becomes a better leader or manager, or hope that the current manager eventually gets fired, another manager gets put in place so you could work for somebody better, or hope that the culture gets better one day so that you could be a beneficiary of
(08:03):
it instead of a contributor to it. You could do that, but you might find yourself waiting a very long time, or worse, continuing to go from job to job to job. The average employee today can't keep a job for ten months, whether it's because they get fired or, believe it or not, the biggest reason they quit. And again, the number one reason people quit is because the person they work for, not the company or what it does.
(08:30):
So don't become a statistic. You don't want to be the average. Average sucks. You don't want to be the most common thing. You want to be the rare that small percent and not the small percent at the bottom, but the small percent at the top. The ones that raise the standard for what it means to be a player on a team.
I would love it if all of you could really listen to this episode. You share with everybody owners. Share this with your team. Let them understand that not only do you share this perspective, but that you welcome it, that you embrace it. Because just by sharing this link with them, it helps them know that you're okay with this and that it's okay for them to come up and talk to you and help manage up.
(09:14):
It helped develop you as a leader as well. Employees, share this with your leaders. If you're not sure if they heard it yet, share with them and just say, hey, are you open to this type of communication between us? If if all of you can really start speaking the same language, it'd be great. So best process I believe for this is number one.
(09:36):
Share it with everyone on the team. It's literally ten minutes long. And number two, set a meeting where all of you can maybe discuss it, whether it's on zoom or in person or whatever. Maybe a combination of both, but let's all discuss it. Hey, what do we think? How can we make this exist in our in our company?
How can this live and breathe in our culture? And I hope, like, I know I've seen it happen with other companies, I do this. I hope it makes your company a better place to work. That gets more shit done and everybody gets to grow in their careers better, faster, easier and has a blast unit. Thanks so much for listening.
(10:11):
Again, if you want to learn more about how to work with us, go to louder McCombs. Schedule a call and we'll see you next time.
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