Who’s the Boss?

BY MARGOT CARMICHAEL LESTER

In today’s competitive business environment, managing your boss may be the best way to manage your own career.

“When you manage your boss effectively, you move from being a mere employee to being a partner in achieving significant goals,” explains Jane Adler, co-author of How to Become A Rising Star In Your Career in 60 Days or Less. “You make yourself an important part of the team and position yourself as a future leader.”

By understanding and anticipating your boss’ needs—and helping him or her meet them—you’re showing off highly valued characteristics, like critical thinking, initiative and teamwork.

GETTING STARTED

Before you start, develop the right mindset. “We need to qualify ourselves as valued team players who have our own voices and have our own untapped contributions to make,” says author Sean Covey. “We must keep two things in mind: one, exactly what the organization’s highest priorities are, and two, what we uniquely have to contribute to those priorities.”

Next, learn the boss’ preferences, needs and goals.

Knowing what works best for your manager— and blending that with what works best for you— makes you both more productive and gives each of you a competitive edge.

“I once had a wonderful boss who was a very-early morning person and absorbed new ideas best when they were presented to him on paper,” says Rosemarie Kitchin, a Durham, NC-based marketing consultant.

“The most productive part of my day is late aft ernoon/early evening. So I would write my memos before I left the office, [and] leave them on his chair so he would see them when he first came in.” Not sure about your boss’ preferences? Just ask!

LEARNING THE WAY

It’s also crucial to understand the top dog’s path, says Phil Wilkins, author of Own Your Business, Own Your Life! “Understand the organizational culture and direction. Ask your boss how she or he feels about the current strategic plan and how they want to position themselves in the company,” he says.

Adler advocates asking about the challenges that keep your supervisor from attaining maximum productivity. “Then figure out what you can do to solve the problems, alleviate stress and accelerate the results your supervisor is looking for,” she says. “What value does this idea bring to your boss? How does it further the bottom-line goals of the company?”

This gives you clearer direction for your own work. “When you link your ideas and activities to what matters most to your boss,” Adler says, “you become a more valuable team member.”

STAYING OUT OF THE WEEDS

Probably the biggest fear we have is overstepping. “Sometimes, there’s a fine line between managing your boss and disrespect,” says Brandon Allen, COO of the Freedom FastTrac in Sandy, Utah.

“If you overstep, the first thing to do is apologize and try to understand where you went wrong by talking it out,” he says. “If you don’t, you risk making the same mistake again. Don’t try to pretend it didn’t happen. It’s important to take responsibility.”

That goes for more than your mistakes. Take ownership of your career by investing wholeheartedly in your boss’ agenda. Employees who go above and beyond their job descriptions become trusted sources of assistance, insight and loyalty. So why not start increasing your value today?

HOW TO MANAGE A CHALLENGING BOSS

“Most people believe that abrasive bosses can’t change and that their situation is hopeless,” says Laura Crenshaw, a self-proclaimed “Boss Whisperer” and president of Executive Insight Group Inc. “But the majority of abrasive bosses don’t see that they’re abrasive, or if they do, they don’t see how much damage they do to others. So the first step for employee or employer is to make them see, followed by making them care enough to change.”

The best—and least perilous— approach is to calmly, respectfully ask the boss to refrain from a specific abrasive behavior. Crenshaw offers this example: “I once politely asked my boss to stop calling me [an off-color name]—he considered it a term of affection—by calmly explaining that I found it disturbing. No longer blind to the impact of his behavior, he apologized profusely and never did it again.”

If that doesn’t work, she adds, “The next step is to methodically make your employer see and care enough about the abuse to intervene with the abrasive boss.” If you’ve done your homework, you’ll probably prevail.

The reason you will succeed is that difficult bosses are a big factor in why good employees quit—and most companies want to keep that from happening.

“Satisfaction at work is strongly linked to the relationships people have with their bosses,” says Karissa Thacker, a New York-based management psychologist. “People do not leave companies. They leave bosses.”