5 Steps to Better Manage Bosses

The best leadership lesson I got was in my MBA “High-Performance Leadership” class at Columbia Business School. Our Professor, a former SVP at PepsiCo demonstrated to us how leading our bosses could significantly enhance our own leadership and success in an organization. He also emphasized the term bosses, as like he explained, you have several bosses in your organization.

Since that class, I have developed as a leader in a multitude of roles, organizations, and countries. I have practiced this rule learned in the MBA, and many others. With hindsight, I realize that I systematically focus on 5 things when I look at managing my bosses. When I do those 5 things regularly, it contributes to a much stronger relationship with my bosses and to more success.

Here are the 5 things I recommend you do in order to strengthen your relationships with your bosses.

1.      Learn as much as you can from your bosses. The essential starting point is to look beyond your immediate direct manager and understand who all your bosses are. A great way to do this is to draw a “boss map” that would look a bit like this:

This is just an example, drawn from my experience in working with multi-international matrix organizations. In this example, I mapped who could be the different bosses based on how strongly I feel I report to them and how big an impact each can have on my growth and success as a leader. It’s definitely not a one-size-fits all approach and anyone may have a different view of which quadrant their bosses belong to. What matters is whether you have identified all the right bosses.

High impact on growth/High reporting line: This is where your primary boss belongs, together with GMs of regions or countries if you work in an organization structured that way.

High impact on growth/Low reporting line: In my experience with matrix organizations, these would be leaders in country or at headquarters who you would need to be connected to, in order to make things happen.

Low impact on growth/High reporting line: Typically, this could be your own boss’s boss, or another senior leader, maybe at headquarters, who is able to support an initiative on your behalf.

Low impact on growth/Low reporting line: In my experience, I would often have found support function leaders in that quadrant. This does not mean they are not important to me. It means nurturing the relationship with them may require less effort on my part.

Once you have mapped your bosses, the fun begins! In order to nurture your relationships and make sure you know your bosses, here are the top 4 things I recommend you learn from each of them:

• What are they goals?
• What do they see as the priorities for your area?
• What is their working style?
• What is a blind spot they may have and where you can help them/add value?

2.      Ask for feedback. If you have great bosses, you may be lucky enough to receive regular, clear, constructive feedback. But let’s face it. As a leader, you may at times dread going into a 1-1 conversation, or an annual review, or any discussion where you need to offer such feedback to a direct report.

Guess what? Your bosses may be exactly like you.

The good thing though is that feedback comes at no cost. You just have to ask for it!

What I suggest is also not to bluntly ask – as I usually did in my early career – “Hey, can you give me some feedback on how I am doing?” Frankly, this is too generic, and it will bring generic responses most of the times.

Instead, I recommend asking feedback from your bosses by using questions such as “What do you think I could have done better in that situation?”, “How do you think I handled that discussion?”, “What do you think of my approach to achieve this?”, etc.

The key is that by getting more relevant feedback, you can spot your blind spots (and those of your team) and turn that feedback into opportunities to learn and develop. This is a gift!

3.      Create a win-win situation. As a leader, you are obviously fully committed to your success. After all, the person that cares the most about your success is probably… YOU!

But to achieve that success alone is close to impossible. And the next best person(s) who can help you achieve your career goals for instance is(are) your boss(es). It is therefore critical that you establish some sort of unwritten agreement with them on what it is you need from them in exchange for your commitment to their success and the success of the organization.

Creating this partnership is key to your development and growth. We often hear that people join good companies and leave bad bosses. This is true. At the same time, if you want to succeed, you are 100% responsible for the quality of the relationship with your boss. I hear you say “well, my boss is really bad, why should I be the only one responsible for making the relationship good?” You have 2 options to be honest. Either you complain, and keep complaining, and you are a victim, and you will probably end up leaving your job. Or you decide you want to do something about it and take full accountability. There’s no guarantee it will work of course, but at least you will have tried.

From my experience, here are at least 3 things you should get from your bosses when you establish that win-win situation:

• Help to expand your network, introduce you to new people. In one of my roles for instance, I had agreed with my boss that he would give me an opportunity to make a presentation to the CFO of the company, to increase my visibility.
• Support for training, and your continuous development, including having regular discussions about career growth. Feedback is the key, to understand what you need to do more or less of in order to succeed and get promoted to the next role.
• Coaching about performance and any topic that you bring in discussions. At times, learning from your bosses how to do something specific (especially when starting in a position) is what matters. At other times, getting real and good coaching from your bosses can help you tremendously to solve issues and enhance your performance.

4.      Tell your bosses when they are wrong. This is probably the #1 thing I learned back in that MBA leadership class: You cannot let your bosses in the dark about their decisions or a situation in the organization. You must show courage, step up and tell your bosses when they are wrong, or about to make a mistake. It can be scary to do, but just imagine the consequences for you (and the organization) if you don’t speak.

Of course, it’s not about saying “Oh no, you’re wrong, we should not do that”. It’s about seeing that the boss is wrong in assuming something or making a decision for instance, and at the same time seeing that nobody will tell him. In our MBA class, we used the example of Hans Christian Andersen’s book “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, which is a classic example of what is known as group pressure. In such situations, you must be that kid from the tale who speaks up and tell the boss he is naked.

On another note, I strongly recommend you read this book. For me, it was an eye opener.

5.      If it is not yet obvious from the above, this one is about not being a victim. You can spend your time complaining about things, your bosses, these processes that are crap, etc. The difference is, an effective leader will step up and do something about what it is they are complaining about. If you want to manage your bosses effectively, don’t complain about them, don’t talk in their back. Go see them, have a discussion, clarify misunderstandings, get clarity on what it is they are expecting from you or what you are expecting from them. See for yourself how this improves the way you are seen as a leader.

As a leader, it’s on you to manage your relationships with your bosses. Not only the boss you are directly reporting to. All the bosses you have. You are 100% responsible for the quality of these relationships, like it or not. It’s life!

Now tell me, I’m curious to know: What other successful approaches have you tried in the past to manage your bosses efficiently? What has worked vs. not worked? What is one thing you keep complaining about and that if you took charge, could result in better managing your bosses?

I’d love to hear your comments of the views and ideas I have shared in this article. Please feel free to comment directly in LinkedIn. I would be happy to exchange with you on this very important topic.

If you would like to find out more about how you might also better manage your bosses, drop me a message or connect with me so that we can explore together how my Executive Coaching Program might help you, your team or your organization in these times.

I look forward to hearing from you.