Why peer relationships are the hardest to manage

When I taught my live management course for the last time, I asked where people struggled most. Managing up? Managing down? The answer surprised me. Almost everyone said the same thing: working with peers. Other EMs, cross-functional leads, the people they had no authority over and no obligation to report to.

I've been thinking about why that is.

Managing down comes with leverage. You're directly responsible for your team, you have authority, and your ideas and direction land with weight. That doesn't mean people always agree or that it's easy, but there's a shared understanding that you own the mandate, you set priorities, and the team operates in your context.

Managing up comes with a playbook. You know your audience is more senior, so you lead with trade-offs and get to the point first before expanding. You're crafting your message for someone who has less context than you and needs the digest version, and there's a rhythm to it once you learn what they care about.

Both directions assume some level of contextual understanding. Your manager knows the org and has a stake in your team's success; your team knows you, they're in the same meetings, they see the same roadmap.

Sideways is different. When you work sideways, that assumption falls apart. You're part of a broader org and you might share a manager or a goal, but you're not living in each other's context. You're focused on your team's deliverables, they're focused on theirs, you've got a deadline and so do they. "We have a deadline to hit, so we can't budge." Yeah. So does everyone.

That's not selfishness. It's the nature of the structure. Everyone is holding the line for their own team, no one has authority to tell the other what to do, and you're both trying to ship. When your priorities collide, the usual shortcuts don't work. Two teams need the same shared resource, one EM has promised a date and the other has promised a different date, and both are right from their own vantage point. "We can't move" meets "we can't move," and someone has to find a different lever.

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What actually helps

Assume you don't have their context. When a peer says no or pushes back, they're probably not being difficult; they're most likely operating with information you don't have. Their team might be underwater, or their stakeholder might have already been promised something. Ask before you conclude they're blocking you.

Lead with what you're trying to achieve, not what you need from them. "We need you to do X by Friday" puts them on the defensive, but "We're trying to hit the launch date and we're blocked on the integration. What would need to be true for your team to help?" opens the conversation. You're inviting them into the problem instead of delivering a demand.

Make the trade-off visible. When you're at an impasse, name it: "If we slip our date, here's what happens. If we ask you to slip yours, what happens on your side?" Sometimes the answer is that someone has to give, and making the cost explicit helps both of you (or a shared manager) make a real decision instead of both sides digging in.

Invest before you need. The worst time to build a relationship with a peer EM is when you need something from them. Regular check-ins when there's no fire make the "we're stuck" conversation easier. You don't want to be strangers negotiating.

Know when to escalate. Some conflicts can't be solved sideways. When you've tried, when the trade-off is real, and when neither of you can budge without hurting your team, take it up. Escalation enables you to bring in leadership to determine which project carries the higher priority. And if they're both high priority, they might have other suggestions on how to help each respective team hit their deadline.

Managing sideways will never have the clarity of down or the playbook of up, but it's most of the coordination work. The managers who figure it out are the ones who stop assuming shared context and start building it.