Manage your boss…

 

By Vinod Bidwaik

All employees believe that they don’t need any boss. They also believe that companies are wasting money by hiring highly paid bosses. You will hardly find any employee who is satisfied with his boss. In employee engagement surveys, most of the times superior are rated based on the personal biases. If boss’s boss entertains employee by bypassing the boss, then it goes very difficult to manage employees.   

We have lot of expectations from bosses. We expect that boss should be the leader, motivator, coach, mentor etc etc. But we fail to understand the perspective of bosses. Employees tend to take convenient stand about the situation. We always forget that boss is successful because of work of subordinate. At the other hand boss is makes you successful by assigning tasks and honing your skills and competencies. Bosses are not God and neither we.  They don’t know everything and neither we; however collaborative relationship helps both.   

If you want to climb the corporate ladder, your boss will takes you there. For this you should learn to manage your boss. Try following strategies to manage him better.  

Understand him: Understand the boss as a person. How he is. What is his personality type? How he reacts and what he likes and dislikes. If you understand the boss better, you are creating more opportunities to be more effective. After all he is not your enemy. He is there to support you.

 

Understand his expectations: Get clarity on goals and KRAs, but also the style of working. If your boss is perfect, then defiantly he will not expect mistakes in data.  If your boss is organized, then he will expect the same from you.  Make his expectations clear.

 

Give regular feedback: Give and take the feedback properly.I have seen employees who do not bother to communicate the bosses about their task. After all your boss is accountable in the company. If you don’t give him the feedback, he will get it from somewhere else.

Don’t hide your mistakes: One my employee use to keep her mistakes under the carpet. Sometimes she uses to manipulate the situation by not communicating the issues. I never like that. Never hide mistakes. You are human being and human being makes mistakes, Exhibit your courage to admit mistakes. However don’t repeat the same mistakes. 

 

Don’t lie: Honesty is the best policy. Being truthful is one of the ways to be successful in life. Never lie with your boss. He will come to know anyway if you are lying.  

  

Improve your communication: You must be expecting from your boss that he should communicate everything to you. This is applicable to you also. Communication is the area which always has the room for improvement.  Improve your communication with your boss. Don’t scare to go to him if you have any issues. 

 

Don’t complain: I have seen employees who always complain. You will have lot of challenges in professional life. Challenges make person perfect. Never complain about person, situation, and resources.

 

Don’t give any excuse: Employees give many excuses if the work is not done. You are responsible for what you are doing. Result counts and not your excuses. 

 

Don’t gossip about your boss: Gossiping about your boss and making fun of him is very unprofessional. Somehow gossips are never secret and bosses come to know what you say about him. 

 

Be effective and result oriented: You are hired for your work. You are expected to show the results. If you are not result oriented, you will not survive in the organization. 

 

Go extra mile: He assigns the task because he thinks you have the caliber to do that task. Hence ask more from boss. Go to him and ask if you can support him if he is busy. Ask delegation. Take more responsibilities. 

 

Be creative and think out of the box: If you are traditional and just following the SoPs, you are not adding any value. You are just a clerk. Be creative in day to day work. Go with ideas and influence your boss.    

You can not avoid bosses in your life. If you can not avoid them, then it is better to collaborate with them. Try to learn from your bosses. Your boss is also human being. He may have egos, emotions and he will also behave as others behave. However he also recognizes the fact that he needs you. He will definitely coach and mentor you. It is upto you how you take his coaching and mentoring