Does Your Boss Like You ?

Your boss, is the most important person for you in the organization.??Those who learn this early on in their career, do well. Those who don't,??neither enjoy nor excel in careers. It has little to do with your performance or even your potential. Most often, your performance in a job depends on your relationship with the boss.

Bosses come in various shapes and sizes. You cannot choose who your boss is going to be. They may come to you because of a promotion – yours or his/hers. They may come because you joined a new firm. A merger of departments or a new re-organization exercise could land you under a specific boss. It may even happen that someone who was your subordinate till yesterday, becomes your boss. All these situations are common in organizations. Whatever the cause, you must learn to manage the boss you get. The onus is on you. Your career, and most of all, your peace of mind, depends on it. Here are some examples of bosses you may have to deal with?

The Toxic boss?

I had a boss who stressed me out all the time. He wouldn't smile. Every time he saw me he had a scowl, which raised my BP levels. I tried to please, but every attempt was met with contempt or slights, that pushed me down even more. The relationship was so toxic that it was affecting my health.

While it was horrible when it lasted, this stint with a toxic boss was instructive. It taught me a lot about how to handle toxic, bullying bosses. Learning to deal with such bosses is integral to the?Art of the Climb. Here are some strategies to neutralize boss bullies:

1.????Focus on the task and job at hand. Remember that you are hired by the company to do a job. Do it as well as you can. If there are KPIs to measure performance, keep track of the same and ensure that everybody, including your boss's boss, knows that you have performed. If you perform and there is data to prove it, you are taking away the one legitimate weapon from your boss.

2.????Do not allow your boss to emotionally manipulate you. Learn to keep your emotional outbursts in check. Anger,??sadness, tears, and frustration are what the toxic boss expects-??the psychological payoff of a??bully. DO NOT GIVE HIM/HER THAT. Stay focussed on your work. Refuse to get emotional –?stay rational. This is difficult, but if you do it, you have taken the power away from your toxic boss.

3.????If your boss shouts, respond with silence. Talk less. Don't try to explain when the other person is agitated. Nothing will register, in any case. Just keep quiet or answer in monosyllables, if needed. Refuse to answer if he/she raises the voice or becomes abusive. Tell the boss calmly:?I can’t hear when you shout…?Nothing is more difficult to fight than silence. Your boss won’t know what to do.?

4.????Use body language effectively:

• ?When facing the boss don't cringe-??brace yourself , pull yourself to your full height, and look the bully in the eye.??
• In a meeting, if the boss is being a bully,??turn your body away. Give the message non-verbally:?I don't want anything to do with you or your behavior.??
• Don't stand up with your head bowed down, when the boss shouts at you.??Sit down, and face the person?as an equal.?
• If the shouting /verbal abuse gets intolerable, just walk out of the room. There is little the boss can do.??

5.????Let the others in the organization know about the bad behavior. There may be others facing the same issue. Let the higher-ups know that you are uncomfortable. Never forget that your boss is also a part of the system. You have been hired by the company, not the boss.

6.????Finally, if nothing works – the strategy is GTFO??( Get The F*** Off). Staying on in the face of a toxic boss is not good for your career or your health.

In your corporate career, you will meet such bosses. Deal with them with firmness.

The ‘nice’ boss

The polar opposite of the toxic boss is the nice boss. This is the kind of boss who likes to please everybody. When you are with him /her, they are always on your side. They don't get angry, don't shout, don't oppose- they don't do anything at all. They don't rock the boat and want to just get on with their lives without getting into any controversies.?

This kind of boss is also dangerous. Just like a sail needs resistance, or a spring needs tension to be effective, a boss also needs to put just the right pressure for you to be effective. A nice boss is often a damp squib boss who will do you no good.

It is easy to be complacent when you have such a boss. Life is cool – but a good career is not about being cool. You need to get ahead. A?nice boss?doesn't help you get ahead. Their good behavior is often a cover-up.

Sometimes, such nice bosses present??an opportunity. Their “nice” behavior could stem from incompetence. They avoid confrontations, for fear of being 'found out'. If you can be the smart deputy, making up for the boss's lack of competence,?you will rise. The boss will be grateful and ensure that you get good ratings in your appraisals. Everyone knows who is responsible for the results under such a boss. You will get the rewards while not feeling the pressure of performance.?

The maverick boss

This is the super-confident, efficient, and competent boss who is envied, and often detested by his/her peers. They bring in the results and therefore continue to wield influence in the company. Such bosses have a fan following. If you happen to be a fan (?and you are under him), you also get to rise in the organization.

But such bosses can be disastrous for your career. Let me illustrate with a personal story:

My first job was as a management trainee in a large firm. The Divisional Head, the de facto CEO for the division, was a short-statured man who towered over all by his sheer force of personality. Let us call him D. He was the stereotypical maverick boss.

D was my first experience of a super boss, in more ways than one. He was of course right at the top, but more than his position it was his energy and?exuberance that made him “super”. He cared little for company rules, he pushed all opposition (to his ideas) away forcefully, he created new business opportunities through maverick thinking – and produced extraordinary results.?

D like most maverick bosses had a cult following. There was the group that was always around him, laughing at his jokes, and regaling in his stories. The followers (which included me) could find no fault in D and sided with him in laughing at and making fun of all other departments and bosses in the company. We, D's followers, were the chosen few – destined to rise under the charismatic leader. Or, so we thought.

While D produced results he also produced enemies in the company - those who were waiting for the right chance to pull him down. And such an opportunity came.?

One day we found that D was not in the office. This was rare for a workaholic like D. The next day also he wasn’t seen in office. When no one had seen or heard of D by the end of the week, rumors started floating around. Some said he was not well. Some said he was on a secret mission for the MD.

After two weeks, the truth started trickling down the grapevine. There was an internal audit inquiry against??D. He was asked to stay away from the office and barred from accessing any company documents. His next-in -command, a very docile man, till now under D's shadow, was made HOD.?

Nothing came of the inquiry, except that D had overstepped his authority and taken decisions without express clearance from the board. Nothing mala fide was established. But this episode broke D. He was never his swashbuckling self ever again. In six months he left the organization.

D left – but what happened to his coterie afterward, is the real story. They were put under watch and systematically grilled by the auditors. In the organization anybody who was seen as a D's man, was ostracised. Their positions were reduced in importance. They were made to feel small in the company. Most of them left the organization in the next few months.

I was too junior to be directly affected by D's inglorious exit.??But I was identified as D's man and got the cold shoulder from the new HOD. He was??now emboldened by his new status and finally free from the shadow of his erstwhile maverick boss, D. My career in the company, which was going well, suffered. It took another three years for me to catch up and rub off the stigma of being close to the discredited maverick boss.?

Be careful of maverick bosses. Be close to them, but also ensure that you do not sour your relationship with the opposite camp.?

Your Boss- the Roaming Star

There is an old adage that you should hitch your wagon to a rising star. True, but imagine if the star is not just rising,?but roaming?as well - roaming from one company to another, every few years, always to higher and higher positions. And if you are hitched to?that?wagon- imagine where you would be.

A friend of mine had such a star to hitch his career wagon to. He had joined a company as an assistant marketing manager. His boss, the Marketing manager was about ten years older than my friend and took a liking to him. They made a great team together. The boss was mercurial, impulsive,??brilliant, and restless. Where his boss was mercurial my friend was systematic, where the boss was impulsive, my friend was balanced -??and most of all, totally dependable.?

The two were so different temperamentally, that many wondered how they got along so well. It was exactly this difference in personalities that made the two gel. One was the perfect foil for the other. My friend's sobriety ensured that his boss's impetuosity was kept in check. His systematic work practices ensured that the boss's mercurial actions were always post-corrected with the necessary back work.?

But the boss was restless. In three years, he jumped to another organization as Director of Marketing. Any guesses on who followed him to the same company as Marketing Manager? My friend, of course. In the next 15 years, the boss moved from one company to another – each change taking him three rungs up the corporate ladder. My friend was always part of the package that the boss took with him to every new company. When the boss retired from his last?company as the MD&CEO,?it was natural for my friend to inherit that post.

If you can find such a boss, don’t let him go, cling on!

How to get a good boss

This chapter started with my history of?bad?bosses. I also gave you a fair warning that?you cannot choose who your boss is going to be.?Now, I am going to debunk all that and tell you that there are no bad bosses, only bad subordinates. So if I had bad bosses, it was because I was a bad subordinate. Therefore, while you cannot choose?who?your boss will be, you do have a??choice on?being the best subordinate. Your boss's behavior is predicated on how?you?behave.

Here are the five traits you need??to??develop to get the perfect boss:

1.????Dependability: nothing defines a good subordinate better than dependability. If you are a subordinate who can always be relied on to perform, you can rest assured you will have a 'good boss'. Your boss should be able to say –?I know he/she will do the job on time. If not, I will be informed,??well in advance.?

2.????Make the boss look good:?a boss is human just like you. If, you make him/her meet their goals and thereby help them look good in front of?their bosses, you would have a won your??boss over for life.

3.????Never outshine your boss:?It is tempting to make yourself look good in front of your boss’s boss. (?in every case, when I look back, I got along famously with my boss's boss, while fighting with my immediate boss This is a cardinal sin in corporate life and sure to ruin your career). Let them ( your boss’s boss) discover the gem that you are,?through your boss’s reports?about you, rather than through your upstaging the boss, especially in public.

4.????Never argue with your boss:?Dale Carnegie had cautioned us decades ago that[1]?:?You can never win an argument -??you can't because if you lose, you lose it; and if you win, you still lose it. This is more true in a boss-subordinate relationship than in any other. You don’t have to always agree with your boss. State your point of view with facts and without emotion. If your boss continues to argue against your idea, back off. You don’t gain anything by defeating him/her in an argument.?

5.????Genuinely accept the "boss package":?The boss is who he/she is. You are who you are. Your mission in life is not to change him/her – it is only to survive till you overtake or bypass him/her. The boss may be fat or thin, capable or incapable, friendly, or a sour puss. Accept him/her into your life as such, for the brief period that you have to. Just as you don't try to change, fight with, or grow to love the passenger in the next seat on your journey – so also treat your boss as the passenger in your career journey.??

[1]?How to Win Friends and Influence People; Dale Carnegie, 1936