Here's how you can handle a boss who resists change or new ideas.

It is so very easy to label your boss(es) as monsters! That gives such an enormous sense of relief and weight loss on your soul, right? However, take a step back and relook. Your boss is after all another human being, who has had their own trajectory, trials and tribulations and success stories. Just as our experiences and exposures shape our behaviors and destinies, so does theirs, and every person's journey is unique. I have worked with various bosses, some younger and some older than me, and have surmised that empathizing with their unique perspectives opens up the dialogue towards understanding the reasons for resistance, and then allows one to craft a tailored approach to convincing the boss to either modify or change their ideas.

Trust is the basic foundation of any relationship! It works both ways, and I have always seen that most humans are wired to trust implicitly than explicitly, i.e. we start off with good faith and expect the other party (includes animals too!) to reciprocate the same way, as it forges meaningful interactions that are fundamental to the way we operate in the community. Businesses operate on trust first, money next! But it is a very fragile value too! As R. M. Williams says, Trust is the easiest thing in the world to lose, and the hardest thing in the world to get back. So it does have to be consciously seeded and maintained, and in professional relationships, our career growth therefore hinges on our trust relationships with our bosses.

People whether in leadership, teams or businesses, succeed best when they see clearly what to achieve and how/where they fit in the overall picture. Defining the vision, mission and goals is the first step to achieving clarity of thought in getting things started off the ground. The next step would be clarity of action, however, this is subject to so many circumstantial factors. In order to get people interested, invested and initiated to action, clarity of outcomes and benefits to all involved stakeholders is vital. I personally endorse the outcomes-focused leadership approach to succeed in our objectives. As our PM Sri. Modi says, million problems-billion solutions. So execution can be based on several single and combined solutions.

Many times bosses (who are also people!) are stressed out as they feel overworked, undervalued, facing nerve-wracking challenges and deadlines. They may or may not reach out to us lower down the chain, for help, though not intentionally always. It helps being proactive, empathetic and supportive by taking the first step in offering assistance, taking over whatever can be delegated and helping relieve some of their work pressure. I have personally seen success in careers when one takes up tasks from bosses which 99% of others in the team do not want to do, and this helps one get to the elite top 1% performers category, paving the way for rapid career growth and recognition, while making one a key value-add and asset in the team/organization.

Data is the new gold! Or call it oil... with people on both ends of it, and in the middle of it. While human intuition, experience and exposure is very essential to present a problem & its various solutions and execution plans to your boss, data is the core element binding all these components together to arrive at a coherent, rational, logical and success-driven decision/outcome. I have found that application of the common SAR (Situation>Action>Result) technique which is successfully used for interviews/hiring, works well for business proposals too to the boss. While building on the hypothesis, using data both from past projects as well as research of market trends, lends credibility to the proposal and helps elicit favorable response.

Being patient can help you deal with a boss who doesn't like new ideas or changes because it gives you time to earn their trust. Being patient lets you understand their worries and points of view, which gives you a chance to address them carefully. You can lower resistance by showing well-researched, gradual changes over time and showing how they will help in the long run. Being patient also leads to a fair and open conversation, which makes your boss more open to new ideas because they see how committed and persistent you are. This method helps make the place where change is introduced more inclusive.