"What's Wrong with my Manager?" - Humanizing your boss

Why doesn’t my boss trust me? Listen to me? Respect my expertise? Care what I think? Support my career? Give me more responsibility? Let me do my job?

Join me live on Tuesday 9/17 from 12-1 pm ET for a WEBINAR: Managing Up - Maximizing your relationship with your boss or visit the link any time to hear more about managing up

The simplest answer is: your boss is human.

I am not excusing. Nor am I dismissing the extreme frustration that bosses can create by micromanaging, ignoring, quiet firing, being too mean, etc.

I get all that. I’ve experienced it. It’s not fun.

I’ve probably been on the other side of the equation too.

It boils all down to anxiety & insecurity.

Everyone has a boss, including your manager. So your manager is likely dealing with an insecure boss of their own who leaves them in a constant state of fear and panic.

“What if I fail? What if my streak of success comes to an end? What if I can’t deliver?”

Which turns into Perfectionism, Risk Aversion, and Hyper Goal/Task Orientation, leading to two behaviors that perpetuate corporate toxicity:

1. A self-centered need to control everything and everyone – “no one is going to do this as well as I can, so I need to be involved in every detail, or the team will make me look bad.”
2. Competitive “Zero Sum” thinking –the insecurity leads to back stabbing, negative politicking, jockeying for position and favored status.

It’s convenient to dismiss these as the result of isolated “bad apple” bosses. But it’s not true - they are expected responses of people living in a constant state of “fight or flight” level stress.

The solution: overhaul the company culture, but that “easier-said-than-done” solution will have to wait.

Rather, today’s focus is on what you can do about a hyper-stressed, anxiety-ridden boss.

Consider how your task oriented boss views you. You are essentially a means to an end, a tool to help them achieve. So you’re either the right tool or not.

If you’re the right tool, great - you have temporarily soothed the anxiety.

But if they needed a screwdriver, and you’re a hammer, then you become, at least for a moment, the source of their frustration.

That’s probably infuriating, obnoxious, unfair, disrespectful, etc.

So what are going to do about it?

Again, not defending your boss, just sharing how to deal with your boss’s iron-fisted control streak. Specifically, you need to find ways of decreasing your boss’s stress.

Here a few thoughts:

• Get into the details: Know your “stuff” better than your boss does. They will see you as a valued resource.
• Have a can-do attitude: Don’t pile your frustrations on to their stress. Be someone they can count on.
• Find a better way: Constantly look for new ways to increase your capacity and the team’s capacity to get high quality work done faster
• Manage Your Manager: Do your job in ways that take work off their plate. Don’t dump your problems on them - come to the table with recommendations, solutions and options.
• Learn from Your Manager: Ask for feedback instead of waiting for it. Proactively seek out knowledge and experiences that make you more valuable to your manager.

So what is wrong with your boss? They are as overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, and insecure as you are (maybe even more.) Focus on how you can alleviate that stress, and the independence will come over time.

Above all, remember when you are leading your own team, don’t perpetuate anxiety. Stop the cycle of viewing the team as means to an end. They are people. Developing their skills and independence will make them more effective and keep them more satisfied.

For more detail on the five bullets above and how to manage up to your boss:

• Join me live on 9/17 at 12 noon ET for a WEBINAR: Managing Up - Maximizing your relationship with your boss
• Get the book - The Middle Matters: A Toolkit for Middle Managers

Or send me a note at [email protected] for information about individual coaching or workshops/programs/presentations for your organization.

This article is cross-posted on jeffsigel.com.