Managing my boss2

4/24/2017 www.AboveorBeyondJM.com 1

Dr. Leahcim Semaj,
April 2016

Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Chief Ideator & Resultant
The JobBank/ Above or Beyond
4/24/2017 3
Keep In Touch!
www.AboveorBeyondJM.com

Why?

www.LTSemaj.com 5
4/24/2017
The Next Level: 4 Management Styles
Low Task
High Relationship
COLLABORATION
High Task
High Relationship
INFLUENCE
High Task
Low Relationship
DIRECTION
Low Task
Low Relationship
DELEGATION
www.AboveorBeyondJM.com 5

What?Why? How?

The Exec Assistant Prayer

What is ManagingYour Boss

Before you manageYour Boss

BeforeYou ManageYour Boss

Reality Check

Prescription

What It’s Not

Managing Up

You Are In charge

Relationship Management

Customer #1

Build on Strengths, Compensate forWeaknesses

ManageYour Performance

"Wait, I should be managing my Boss?
• But they manage me!" Indeed!
• You’ve heard of managing your teammates, managing your stress, managing your
time but who ever heard of managing your boss?
• The fact remains that some managers and bosses are shoved into positions
without skill or training while others just have bad personalities; but, don’t despair,
they can be dealt with.
• If your boss falls into that 'bad manager' category then don't despair.
• Perhaps a paradigm shift is what you need.
• There are things that can be done to remedy this relationship so that it doesn't
begin to damage your productivity or the morale of your team mates.

Who has the handle?Who has the blade?

COMPLEMENT OR CONFRONT?

that can be involved in managing a bad
boss or just managing your manager:

1. Diagnose the problem
• This was cited by research from Georgetown University's
McDonough School of Business, which found that
•incivility is a major cause of disagreements between
workers, and can lead to tension between managers
and their direct reports.
• The researchers also pointed to
• workload as a significant cause of the stress that
leads to incivility and poor working relationships
between managers and employees.

There's no such thing as
the ultimate bad boss.
• Often, a poor relationship with a manager will come down to a very few
fundamental disagreements,
• along with a range of personal attitudes that cloud this disagreement.
• At the same time, 'bad' managers can cover a spectrum of different
behaviours.
• A micromanager, for example, presents a completely different issue to a
manager who is hands-off to the point where they don't provide support
or guidance.
• This is why it's so important to diagnose what makes your boss 'bad'.

2. Focus on your communication skills/
Talk it out
•Communication and other soft skills are among the
most fundamental to healthy workplace
relationships, but also the most lacking.
•This is despite 84% stating that communication and
the ability to build positive relationships was
important for their success in the workplace.

Over-communicate if you have to.
• Give updates.
• Even if you think your boss knows what's going on, update her with
what you're seeing.
• Talk about your progress, new data you're discovering that could
improve the outcome, and, of course, the potential challenges.
• You can even put structure around this by implementing something
dead simple like this:
• a weekly update that takes 15 minutes to write and 5 minutes to
read--no more.

2 Way Street
• Just as your bosses are accountable for
managing you, you are responsible for
managing them.
• Chances are your boss will be impressed and will
want to work with you on revising the plan,
empowering you to continue doing good work.
• How often have you heard that something as
simple as better communication can offset the
potentially damaging effects of a poor manager.

According to the authors,
•only 58% of respondents felt they have the ability to
take control of the situation and remain positive in the
face of adversity.
•According to the researchers, developing these qualities
requires managers to invest in their own skill set,
through short courses and professional training that will
help them build their own skill sets.

Additional skills to communicating
with your boss are:
• Know what you need.
• You cannot expect your manager to instinctively know what you
need to perform your job to the best of your ability
• especially if you haven’t yet figured it out yourself.
• Make a list of the tools and supportive measures you require and
share that list with your manager.
• Any decent manager will be relieved to be freed of the need to
guess, whether fulfilling your entire list is possible or not.

Make your intentions clear.
•Let your manager know, during your interview or as
soon as possible after you are hired, in words or actions
or both,
•that under no circumstances are you willing to
•break the law or violate a Code of Ethics,
•Express any moral objections you may have in regard to
specific job duties.

3. Own the Problem
• Don't avoid the problems, tackle them head-on.
• Face the facts and don't let your emotions get in the way.
• If things aren't going according to plan, that's OK as long as you're actively
communicating the challenges and what you plan to do about them.
• What's not OK is waiting until it's time to report on progress to say that
something came up so you couldn't get the job done.
•“If you see something, say something.”
• This slogan speaks to overcoming obstacles before it's too late.

4. Anticipate
• Sometimes you have to just look to the future and anticipate what may
happen.
• Pull out that crystal ball called a "gut instinct" and mix it with some due
diligence to anticipate what may happen that could derail your plan.
• Don't be afraid to be wrong or to bring up something that might have
an adverse impact.
• Undoubtedly, something will come up to partially thwart your
progress-but it's better to anticipate these things than to let them
smack you in the face.

Once you have a sense of
potential challenges,
•develop a plan for what you're going to do about
them.
•Play out different scenarios and have an opinion
about what will happen and what your
recommendation will be.
•Then, communicate it.

5. ModelThe BehaviourYou WantTo See
From A Manager
•This is perhaps the hardest when you are trying to deal
with a bad manager –
•build a culture around you which discourages the
negative behaviour you are seeing from your manager.
•After all, bad bosses don't occur in isolation,
• their behaviour will already be shaping the company as a
whole.

Research from Georgetown University
• found the main reason for middle managers to behave in an uncivil way is
because they have experienced the same behaviour from their superiors.
• In this way, a bad boss quickly sets the tone for the organization as a whole
and shapes the entire business.
• Addressing this cultural aspect requires taking the opposite approach, and
actively modeling the behaviour that you want to see from your boss.
• After all, company culture is a two-way street that shapes the behaviour of
everyone in the business, including those in management roles.

4/24/2017 www.LTSemaj.com/ www.ABOVEorBEYONDJM.com 42

6. Sometimes you just have to:
•Give and take.
•If you expect your manager to cut you occasional
slack, be prepared to return the favor.
•You cannot hold your manager to a higher standard
than the one your manager observes
•or the one you follow yourself.

7. Get over it and move on.
•At times you just have to be the bigger person,
as much as it hurts.
•If you can’t get over it, take a deep breath,
march into your manager’s office and hash it
out.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking a broken
relationship with your manager won’t
affect your ability to care for your clients.

Conceptually, this is quite simple.
•However, it does represent a new paradigm of
action for most individuals walking the halls of
today's companies.
•The biggest shift for many people will be the
adoption of proactivity as their default behavior.

The Concept Of "Managing Up"
• is not about reporting lines or
matrices,
• it's about responsibility and
ownership-taking responsibility for
communicating what's
happening and owning the process
of getting something done.

SUMMARY

Leadership skills: critical for all of us
• not only when we are leading subordinates, but more often when
we have to lead our superiors and bosses.
• If people are afraid to help their leaders lead, their leaders will fail.
• As the pace of change accelerates those on the front lines have
become more independent and by necessity responsibility to keep
the leader more informed than before.
• You are the one out front and you can see what the leader is
missing.
• You must speak up if you wish to lead up.

You are in a better position to
evaluate the Emperor's ward robe.

Be willing to be a risk taker.
•In order for you to succeed as a risk
taker on behalf of those above you,
•it is necessary that you develop
the ability to arrive at decisions
quickly and accurately.
•This you must be willing to do,
despite the severity, rather than
kick them upstairs.

The US Marines,
•the ultimate command-and-
control institution.
•If the superior issues a flawed
order officers are expected to
point out the flaws before
those orders go into effect.

General Peter Pace:
•Former Joint Chiefs Chairman.
•He never ended a meeting
without asking his subordinates
to tell him what each think.
•In challenging them to
challenge him he reinforces the
culture where all are inspired to
lead up.

Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Chief Ideator & Resultant
The JobBank/ Above or Beyond
4/24/2017 55
Keep In Touch!
www.AboveorBeyondJM.com

Managing my boss2

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