Managing your boss is essential for workplace productivity and career success. Here are five success tips on how to manage your boss.
How often do we hear, “My boss is difficult, overbearing, demanding, and unresponsive?”
Sometimes they are!
But having a boss is a reality for many people, whether in the workplace or elsewhere.
I have worked with many bosses representing all shades of characters described above: difficult, overbearing, demanding, and unresponsive. But I have also encountered exceptionally good bosses who taught me invaluable lessons in managing people. This post is dedicated to all of them because working with them taught me the basic elements of workplace relationships.
Our bosses inspire us, challenge us, and even champion our career development. They provide direction and support to help us achieve our career goals.
The conflict between having a supportive boss and a difficult one has severe implications for career success. So, how do we manage our bosses to achieve our desired career goals?
This article will explain, but first, let’s explore the concept of managing your boss further.
What managing your boss means
Managing your boss is not an act many people consider normal. After all, many believe bosses are usually more experienced, versatile, and endowed with superior skills and wisdom to manage their subordinates. So, they see their bosses as the all-knowing symbol of perfection capable of doing no wrong.
Based on the above, bosses must manage subordinates and provide guidance and direction. In return, they must demand obedience, loyalty and performance from their subordinates. Thus, the idea of subordinates managing their bosses is abnormal.
The above is the traditional view of managing your boss.
The modern concept of managing your boss is different from the traditional view. According to Professors John J. Gabaro and John P. Kotter of the Harvard Business School, managing your boss is “the process of consciously working with your superior to obtain the best results for you, your boss, and the company“. This precess thus improves the boss-subordinate relationship and increases workplace productivity.
This blog post explains five ingenious ways of working with your boss for career success.
Why manage your boss?
The prevalence of conflicts and interpersonal differences in the workplace demands that the relationship between bosses and their subordinates be complementary. A harmonious working relationship makes it possible to achieve a common goal.
The relationship between bosses and their subordinates should be based on mutual respect and cooperation. Subordinates need their bosses to provide the support base for them to perform. They also need their bosses to give a fair and unbiased appraisal of their work and to support their career aspirations.
Bosses provide their subordinates with links to the rest of the organisation. They also help them set the right priorities and to obtain needed resources.
On the other hand, bosses need cooperation, reliability and honesty from their subordinates. They also require the understanding and cooperation of their subordinates to achieve the desired business goals.
The relationship between bosses and their subordinates is complementary. Thus, managing your boss is a way to ensure a harmonious working relationship so that desired business and career goals are achieved.
Success tips for managing your boss.
Here are five success tips from two amazing bosses I worked with. The under-listed tips on how to manage your boss may prove helpful for all who desire to achieve success in their careers.
1. Never pass bulk on tasks given to you. If you delegate, take responsibility.
You must be accountable for tasks assigned to you, even if you have to delegate them. Your bosses know that you may not directly carry out the job. But they will not accept excuses for failure. Bosses expect you to ensure that the tasks are appropriately executed by whoever you delegate them to.
If there is a delay or problems arising from undertaking the tasks, explain to your boss, take responsibility for the failure and outline measures to correct the anomaly. Do not push the blame on others.
2. Do not take only problems to your bosses; also take solutions.
The second tip about managing your boss is to show that you can add value to their work. If your bosses have to spend their limited time figuring out solutions to the problems you bring, you are not helpful to them. Your boss’s responsibility, among others, is to decide whether your proposed solution is the most rational given the prevailing circumstances.
When confronted with difficult situations, do not just go to your bosses to discuss the problem. It will help if you go along with your suggestions for solutions. Provide your bosses with all relevant information to decide on the optimal solution given the context or situation.
3. Keep to your promises. Bosses may pretend, but they always remember when you default.
If it becomes unavoidable that you do not keep the promises you made to your bosses, inform them in advance before you are expected to deliver. Your bosses may need the information to adjust and to prevent embarrassing situations.
Bosses often rely on your performance to deliver on their promises elsewhere. Bosses will always hold to account subordinates whose non-performance placed them in awkward positions before their superiors.
4. Never discuss your bosses with their superiors; you may not be present when they will discuss your future.
Another great tip on how to manage your boss is never to discuss your bosses with their superiors. It’s even worse to run them down before their managers, even if you are requested to do so.
Those who seek to use you to run your bosses down will never forget how untrustworthy a subordinate you are when they have to make crucial decisions about you. Refuse to be the instrument for destroying the career of your superiors; what goes around comes around.
5. Always let your bosses take the credit, even if you are the brain behind their successes.
If you take the shine away from your bosses, they will look for ways to put you out of the limelight. If you let them take the glory for your excellent work, they will respect you and see you as an essential team member. They will also protect you, knowing their success depends on your success. So let your bosses take the credit, even if you are the brain behind their accomplishments.
The last word on managing your boss.
Managing your boss is a challenging task but essential for career success. The skill to manage one’s boss is more relevant today than at any time in the recent past.
Here’s why.
Corporate organisations are facing more significant challenges in managing their ever-depleting resources. Emerging technology is constantly decreasing employee contact time, thereby reducing interpersonal relationships. To surmount these challenges, the relationship between bosses and their subordinates out to be cordial and based on mutual respect and cooperation.
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- What’s your exit strategy from paid employment?
- 4 Important leadership lessons a minute meeting with my boss taught me.
- From limitations to possibilities: How to turn self-doubt into career-enhancing opportunity.
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