How to Manage Your Boss to Get Results

Managing my boss? Yeah right. You’re probably thinking to yourself. It sounds like the start to a cruel joke that old-timers play on the new wet around the ears recruits.

But there’s a lot of merit to this approach. It has saved me a lot of heartache and disappointment when I’ve had a crappy boss.

I wish someone had pulled me aside and told me these lessons earlier on in my career. Instead, I was focused on being right and by providing the correct inputs from my perspective. But my perspective and the boss’s perspective were different. I should have focused on their wants and needs. I probably lost out on a couple of opportunities because of this.

At times you’re going to have a dual relationship where you need to serve the organization’s goals and that of your boss. I’ve often been in a position where the boss wants to do something that hurts the organization. This is not an easy position to be in. Even still I will support the boss. I may try to nudge their thinking but unless what they are proposing is particularly heinous I will ultimately comply.

The best way to manage up is to make sure you have a good relationship with your boss. In every job, the main job I later learned was to make them [the boss] look good and make them profitable. Focus on their goals.

Don’t attempt to leapfrog your boss: This has about a 5% chance of working and when it fails you are going to have created a worse environment for you to work in. Further, your boss is likely to get a sniff of your plan and will react in negative ways toward you. No bad-mouthing. No sabotaging. You want to present to the rest of the organization as someone with a positive attitude and flawless execution. Yes, unfortunately, optics matter.

Think of your boss as an ally, not an adversary: Even a bad boss (and I’ve had more than a few) holds most of the cards when it comes to your performance reviews and promotion potential. Unless he or she personally doesn’t like you they are likely indifferent to you advancing or getting a raise. Figure out what things they can do to help you with the least amount of effort on their part.

Figure out what is important to your boss and deliver on that

In every position, I’ve been in my own priorities and that of my manager has always differed. Sometimes a little bit, other times by several orders of magnitude. I learned no matter what my vision for the organization or a project was to set it aside. This was tough. I wanted to be recognized for my cleverness and long-term orientation. Unfortunately, having personal investment just creates disappointment and feeds discontent.

Ask your boss these questions:

“What am I responsible for?”
“Are there any requirements for time, cost, profitability, or resources I need to be aware of?”
“What are you BOSS being measured on?” – You’ll want to help them deliver on this.
“What is the prioritization for this project”? To be effective you’ll want to focus on the most important items.
“How can I best help you achieve XYZ?”

Provide stellar reporting that your boss can share with her superiors

Provide both verbal and written status update reports that your boss can dissect and send off to her superiors. Some bosses are more visual learners and others are more auditory learners. If they’re the auditory kind provide a verbal summary first and follow up with an email memo. If they are visual start with a memo and offer to follow up with a verbal briefing.

The idea is to communicate in a way that he/she best responds to.

Do these things to be successful:

Find out what the cadence of their meetings are where they will be required to report out on progress. I like to feed the boss information that they will have time to dissect and ask me follow-on questions about prior to this.
Meet one-on-one with your boss once per week to review in an “update meeting”. Ideally, this is a 1/2 hour meeting.
Don’t make people ask for information. Communicate broadly and pre-emptively.

Never reveal to your boss that you’re “managing” them

This one should go without saying. You’re going to get some funny looks if you go around telling people that you’re managing your boss. Your boss might even take offense.

What are some of your tips that you use to “manage” your boss?