Managing the boss – Part 2
Last week, we discussed how you can manage your boss. We focussed on the need to understand his or her main interests and drivers and then developing your working plan based on those inputs.
Today, we want to discuss the same topic with expanded scope covering typical approaches that you can use to not just keep your job with the boss but possibly to exceed his or her impressions of you as a great performer and a talent to develop. This will make your boss to invest his time in growing you and developing your talent.
The first approach you need to take is to feed into your bosses main projects and priorities. You need to constantly understand the main priorities of your boss, the biggest projects through which he wants to drive the section, or department or organisation. Your task then remains to clearly and accurately define the actions that you need to take from your area of responsibility to contribute towards that direction that your boss wants to go.
The second tactic is alignment. You need to be sure that in most cases, you are in line with your boss. When you know for sure that your boss is on the wrong course, you need to find a tactical way to correct him or her. You do not do that in public, not to shame him or her and not to show off that you know better than the boss. Style and timing are key to this tactic. If you can’t master the timing and approach on re-calibrating your boss, then do not even attempt! You would rather leave your boss on the wrong course than to correct him or her to right path using a wrong approach or at a wrong time or place. Remember you need to be in line with your boss’s thinking, ideology and approach in general terms.
Where it is absolutely necessary to correct your boss in public, you must do it with the tact, diplomacy and respect expected. Anything to the contrary is a recipe for causation of a troubled relationship with your boss.
The third and perhaps the most important approach is to work with a view of making your boss shine, always! Which boss doesn’t want to shine? All bosses do! I once shared under this column the advice that I received from an old Shell oil employee on my first day at Shell ten years ago. I had asked him what I needed to have a successful career in Shell. He said: “Keep your boss safe from his or her boss.” He essentially meant I needed to make my boss shine! That advice is relevant to everyone in any career.
The fourth approach you need to take is to bring a series of pieces of good news to the boss. Deliver, perform and close issues and projects. Each time you do one of these, report to your boss. Your boss will in turn report higher which will make you shine too! Some bosses will report higher giving credit to you— enjoy it. When the boss does not give credit to you, do not worry about that because with time everyone will know the scale of your achievement, just keep your focus on the job. Do not be one of those people who keep coming to the boss with problems, challenges, failures, postponements, cancellations, and issues. Let those be the rare exceptions. Even when you do bring one of those not so good pieces of news, bring along also recommendations for solutions. Ask your boss not for solutions but for support towards solutions that you recommend. This way you will be seen to be in control and to be a master of your job.
Today, we have discussed four of the approaches that you can use in taking your relationship with your boss to greater heights. If you practise these, in addition to what we discussed last week, you will not just keep your job. Rather, you will emerge the star performer and the likeable employee that your boss relies on. Good luck!
