Take it upwards
By Terry McHugh | smh.com.au | 12 September
Of course your supervisor manages you but, as Terry McHugh shows, sometimes you have to manage them.
One important factor at work is the quality of your relationship with your boss. But manage your boss? Is it OK to do that?
You may feel the whole idea of managing your boss is somehow sneaky or subversive. If so, think again. Boss and employee – it's a relationship, underpinned by law. Much like a marriage, really.
And when you think about it, you probably manage all the other important relationships in your life quite instinctively. Therefore, it's not really a question of whether you should manage your boss but how.
Your boss – although not necessarily aware of what you are doing – is depending on you!
Your objectives
To ensure your success, you want your boss to treat you fairly, recognise your efforts, provide solutions and support and mentor you.
They may not be very good at this, in which case you can manage upwards. It doesn't mean manipulating – it's about improving the quality of your workplace relationships.
You certainly don't want to create trouble and you should always keep in mind your important legal duties and obligations to your employer. You should never do anything that would undermine the relationship of trust between you both.
Understand your boss
The better you know your boss, the greater your chances of a successful management mission.
Understand them from every angle but start with factors that have shaped your boss's life: age, gender, health and religious and cultural differences. Consider the type of employer you work for.
Public-service managers may be conservative and risk-averse. Small-business owners can be difficult to manage but remember, in many cases they have taken great personal risks to build their business.
Delve a bit more deeply into personality issues if you can. You may feel you can already predict your boss's work behaviour, based on months or years of working together.
You may know all about his or her family and social life. All of that is fine but what you are seeing is not always the total person.
Ideally, you need to understand something of the core – motivations, values, insecurities, the reasons for particular behaviours. Is your boss creative, entrepreneurial, sensitive, money-focused?
Observe your boss's behaviour with people and situations over time. You probably already do this with your other important relationships but if you don't have an instinct for it, ask some of your more trusted workmates to do this "personality profiling" for you.
Others often have remarkable insights into human behaviour. Nobody is asking you to stick your nose into your boss's private life – you can gather more than enough information at work.
And keep in mind that bosses – quite properly – use all the information they can muster in choosing and developing employees. Psychometric testing is one well-established practice.
You need to consider whether your boss knows you – the real you. Most of us have a "projected persona" that we take to work every day. To manage your boss successfully, you need to have an understanding of how you are viewed and understood by your boss. Again, get help from your friends if needed.
Are they an idiot?
Your boss may or may not be an idiot. But they are still the boss and you want them to trust you and feel comfortable with you. If you are really smart, you will manage the relationship in a way that is sensitive to their ego needs and bolsters his or her confidence in the role.
I have been involved in dozens of cases where employment relationships have unravelled because of a belief the employee is "smarter" than the boss. The employee may have little respect for their boss or may have unrealistic expectations about their boss's ability or performance.
Sometimes bosses feel vulnerable in managing talented employees who may, for example, possess superior qualifications or display better communication skills.
As an employee, you need to be alert to the possibility that your boss may feel threatened by you; bosses are human, with weaknesses and insecurities they may try to conceal.
Communicate
The key to managing your boss is to view the relationship as a two-way arrangement that should provide benefit to both parties. If you suspect your boss doesn't quite see things this way, don't give up.
Simply manage upwards more. Carefully plan the method, tone and timing of important communications with them.
Once you feel you have a good understanding of your boss and yourself, you can plan your management strategy and target your communications accordingly.
So there you have it. Don't just sit there and fret because your boss sets impossible goals for you or overlooks your fabulous results.
Stop whinging and start managing.
Terry McHugh is a workplace relations lawyer and author of How to Beat Your Boss: The Workplace Survival Guide. To read an extract, visit mycareer.com.au/extract. beatyourboss.net.au
First published by Smh.com.au on September 12 2009
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