Woe to the person that fails to properly manage his or her boss. And don’t confuse the concept of managing the boss with anything that resembles shameless sucking-up or its close cousin, brown-nosing.
While some bosses are more challenging than others, you are well served to give it your best shot to understand as much about your boss’s working style, priorities, expectations and aspirations as possible.
Learning to work with and yes manage the person that you work for is a critical issue in ensuring your short-term success and long-term professional sanity. Those interested in digging in to some of the formative work on “boss management” are encouraged to check out the work of John Kotter and John Gabarro, including their formative article, “Managing Your Boss.” in the Harvard Business Review.
For now, here’s a quick checklist to help remind you of some best practices that you can apply immediately.
9 Great Habits in Boss Management:
1. Keep the boss appropriately informed. You should gauge his/her need for information volume and frequency and adapt to it. Also, remember that some bosses are “readers” and some are “listeners.” Don’t overwhelm a “listener” with reports and don’t expect verbal updates to cut it with “readers.”
2. Prove your credibility daily. Honesty is the only policy. Never give a boss a reason to doubt your word.
3. Your boss’s priorities are yours. Learn them, live them, work them.
4. Know the boss’s pet programs. See also the priority note. Find ways to support and extend those programs across the organization.
5. Learn your boss’s aspirations. Help a great boss achieve his/her aspirations and you’ll benefit in the process. Help a lousy boss do the same and you’ve solved a problem.
6. Know your boss’s organizational heroes. Seek opportunities to help bring them and you together.
7. Outside interests? Make them yours if you can be genuine. While it might be hard for you to fake interest in WWF Wrestling or Tractor Pulling or whatever slightly off-the-beaten path interest your boss has, you are well served to show interest if he does. The best case is finding an opportunity that interests both of you and genuinely finding ways to share information and even time. In my household, I grew up riding motorcyles and skiing with my Dad and his boss and coworkers.
8. Resist the urge to publicly disagree with your boss. Speak up respectfully in private if you have to, but, don’t light a boss-bridge on fire in a public setting. The quick combustion might consume you.
9. Negative Boss Talk. It’s easy to fall into this trap and cathartic for some. Never, ever, ever engage in negative boss talk. Run, don’t walk in the other direction.