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Managing Your Boss

This document provides tips for managing one's boss effectively. It advises understanding the boss's goals, pressures, strengths, and preferred work styles. It also suggests understanding one's own strengths, weaknesses, and style to facilitate the relationship. Key aspects of developing the relationship include having compatible work styles, managing expectations, ensuring an appropriate flow of information, dependability, honesty, and efficient use of the boss's resources.

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Pratulay Sharma
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157 views22 pages

Managing Your Boss

This document provides tips for managing one's boss effectively. It advises understanding the boss's goals, pressures, strengths, and preferred work styles. It also suggests understanding one's own strengths, weaknesses, and style to facilitate the relationship. Key aspects of developing the relationship include having compatible work styles, managing expectations, ensuring an appropriate flow of information, dependability, honesty, and efficient use of the boss's resources.

Uploaded by

Pratulay Sharma
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Managing your boss

Presented by:
Managing your boss

“Successful managers develop relationships with


everyone they depend on – including the boss”
Misreading the boss-subordinate relationship

Personality conflict: very small part


Unrealistic assumptions:
 Failed to see the dependence of the boss on his
subordinate: help, cooperation and honesty
 Some are too self-sufficient: no need critical
information and resource a boss can supply
Unrealistic expectation: all boss can provide
information or help subordinates.
Reasonable expectation: boss can only provide
modest help. Effective managers should seek
information and help they need instead of waiting for
their boss to provide it.
Understanding your boss
Goals and objectives: organizational and personal
Pressures: from his own boss and others at the same
level
Strengths and weaknesses
Preferred working styles:
 How a boss like to get information? Memos, meeting, or
phone calls
 Does he thrive on conflicts or try to minimize them?
 Should be more sensitive to work styles of a new boss
 Should seek out this information on a going basis as
priorities and concerns change over time
Understanding yourself
Boss is one-half of the relationship
You: the other half and have more direct control
Effective working relationship: know your own
strengths, weaknesses and personal style.
Not change the basic personality structure of you or
your boss
But be aware of what is about you that impedes or
facilitates working with your boss
Take actions that make the relationship more
effectively
Understanding yourself
Gaining self-awareness and acting on it based on past
experience
Subordinates more dependent on the boss: frustrations
Handle these frustrations based on predisposition:
Counter-dependence
Over-dependence
Understanding yourself
Both these predisposition lead managers to unrealistic
views of what a boss is
In fact: bosses are imperfect and fallible: they don’t
have unlimited time, encyclopedic knowledge, or
extrasensory perception nor are they evil enemies
Awareness of these extremes and the range: useful to
understand your own predisposition, implications, and
predict your reaction and behaviors
Developing and managing the relationship

Compatible work style:


Listeners vs. readers
Decision-making style: involved or not
Complement skills to make up for each other’s
weaknesses
Mutual Expectation
Boss’s expectation: broad or specific
Communicate your own expectation to the boss
Developing and managing the relationship

Mutual Expectation: to deal with inexplicit expectation


of the boss using different approaches that depend on
the boss’s style:
Detailed memo with key aspects of a manager’s work
approved by the boss
Initiate an ongoing series of informal discussions about
“good management” and “our objectives”
Getting information indirectly through those who used to
work for the boss and through the formal planning
systems
Developing and managing the relationship

Flow of information:
How much information the boss needs depends on the
boss’s style, situation and confidence with the
subordinates
How to deal with a good-news-only boss: management
information system, communicate immediately
Developing and managing the relationship

Dependability and honesty


Be consistent and meet the deadlines
Be honest to gain trust from the boss
Good use of time and resources
Boss has limited time, energy and resources: be wise to
draw on these resources selectively
Recognize that managing relationship with the boss takes
time and energy
Effective managers understand that this part of their
work is legitimate
5 Steps To Manage Your Boss

faster decisions, better decisions and more


trust.
The Boss's Influencers
Create a list of everyone who carries weight
with your boss.
Include their job title and whatever you know
about their background and role inside your
firm.
Now craft a variation of your core message that
positions what you're doing as helpful to each
person.
Supporting Messages
Audience (your boss) Message
 VP of Marketing I'm developing a channel
sales program that will increase revenue and profit.
(core message)
 VP of Engineering This new program will get the
products you're designing out to as many people as possible.
 VP of Manufacturing With channel sales, we'll be able
to predict demand, which will cut down on job overruns.
VP of HR The program I'm developing
will let us expand the business
without exceeding headcount
limitations.
CFO With channel sales We can sell products at a
20 percent higher gross
margin than with direct sales.
Learn Everything You Can About
Your Boss's Career

Understand where he came from in order


to know what he expects.
find opportunities (such as during lunch
or offsite meetings) to express a healthy
curiosity about your boss's experience.
Sample Questions for Your
Boss
"I was on the web learning more about our
industry and I noticed that you presented at the
[name] conference. What kind of response did you
get?"
"Your admin mentioned you used to work for
[name of firm]. What was the most valuable thing
you learned from that experience?“
Side effect of this:
your boss will be flattered that you're interested.
Cultivate Compatible Personal
Interests
Do you play golf? Love football? If not, it may
be time to start.

For example, if your boss likes to talk business


while playing golf, learning to play—and enjoy the
game—will inevitably bring you closer.
Create a Core Message for Your
Boss
Bosses are forgetful. Make sure yours knows just
how valuable you are.
Sell yourself Smartly.
To do this, create a "Core Message"—a brief
summary of exactly what you're doing and why it's
vital to the boss's success.
A core message might be, "My team is designing
the follow-on products to our most successful
product line.
Reassure your boss that you know
what you're doing.
What Your Boss Expects: The Basics

Credibility. Follow through on assignments


Professionalism. Bosses appreciate individuals who are
serious.
Integrity. The test of integrity is whether you'll take a stand
to a decision.
Caring. Show that you're truly concerned about your boss
Knowledge. Bosses need people who have unique expertise.
Summary: Checklist for managing your
boss
Understand your boss and his or her context:
 Goals and objectives
 Strengths, weaknesses, blind spots
 Preferred work style
Address yourself and your needs:
 Strengths and weaknesses
 Personal style
 Predisposition toward dependence on authority figures
Summary: Checklist for managing your
boss
Develop and maintain a relationship that:
Fits both your needs and styles
Is characterized by mutual expectations
Keeps your boss informed
Is based on dependability and honesty
Selectively uses your boss’s time and resources

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