A whole lot of your work life depends on your boss's nature. And a whole lot depends on you.
In my 18-year long career, I have had the opportunity to report to 16 bosses. This important “Boss-Subordinate” dyadic relationship exposed me to varied standards of performance, corresponding to the type of relationship that I shared with my boss. The host of experiences included outcomes based on extraordinary synergies, mediocre mutuality, lukewarm conversations, and stagnant chemistries.
What follows is a narration of my journey through a consulting firm, a service organisation, an IT/ITes companies and manufacturing organizations. It includes the principles that I discovered for myself along the way – Principles that were tested basis the struggle between my innate needs and the needs of the corporate world.
I entered corporate life guided by some powerful unwritten principles based on conventional education, a pious family upbringing and living together with a large sibling group. This initial training and the habits inculcated, propelled me in my first job.
Lasting Principles
In my first job, I carved out a niche for myself by adopting a disciplined approach, familiarising myself on the business processes, learning from peers, seniors, creating best practices and sharing it with the team, reading research publications, improving my business communication, keeping away from politics and above all cultivating a zeal to excel. I chose my role models carefully and tried to emulate appropriate aspects of their behaviour. The all-round appreciation received helped lay the foundation of my guiding principles.
Throughout my first job, there was no focus or question of trying to proactively engage my boss as the key priority. A natural outcome of all the work that I did resulted in engagement with the boss. Of course, there were apprehensions as bosses kept changing, however, my work ethic guided me and influenced the perceptions that my bosses had about me. This enabled me to build a lot of credibility in the organization.
As I moved on to my next job, I continued with the same approach and it worked out very well, initially. I had to report to 2 bosses (administratively and functionally) who were equally important. While my approach worked well with boss # 1, it did not cut much ice with my functional boss # 2. She had expectations from my role which were different from what I had in mind. While my administrative boss was very supportive, there was fair amount of “noise” in my relationship with the functional boss. I continued with my approach though I made a few modifications.
While the rest of the organisation appreciated my efforts, commitment, and overall results; however, my functional boss’s perception about me only worsened. While I finally took a call to leave the organisation, I got some very good words of encouragement from my administrative boss. This experience taught me two important lessons:
As far as possible avoid reporting to two bosses, particularly when there is ambiguity in the reporting structure.
Do not even try to adjust your style to two bosses as that can affect your productivity and performance.
The next role I took up gave my great satisfaction; however, I had to contend with limited and sub-quality resources.
This was extremely challenging as it had a direct impact on my engagement with clients. While I continued to put in my best efforts with the clients, I patiently escalated the matter to my boss. However, my boss came from an unrelated industry and had not managed this kind of role before. He strongly believed that one must try to manage with the available resources. I did not let that discourage me and decided to work around the problem.
For instance, on one assignment, I worked with outsources facilitators (who supplemented the in-house resources) to try and meet the high expectations from our client. It worked well and thanks to our teamwork, we got excellent team reviews. I learnt that working around the constraints imposed by the boss or organization is a strategy that can be used when all else fails.
I gave several recommendations and suggestions to change the process of our delivery and products, which did not go down well with some of my colleagues, who perhaps felt I was imposing on their turf. However, all through this journey, I never compromised on my principles and neither did I engage in office politics. These qualities helped me move on with greater confidence.
Re-Discovering My Principles
In one of my next assignments, I was faced with a unique challenge. The role that I had accepted had minimal supervision and I was part of a team that was spread across many locations. Team meetings and discussions were virtual, and my boss was involved in numerous activities in the organization. I enjoyed the autonomy that the role offered me. However, this was also a challenge because with so many new initiatives being pursued, the team was feeling lost and rudderless. The saying “baptism by fire” seemed an apt description of what I was going through.
I had a huge canvas before me and complete freedom to do my work. I went on to my basics: Working hard, discovering, and developing ideas, researching, and experimenting with newer methods in training design and delivery. The effect on the organization started showing with many people enrolling for training programs.
With an enthusiastic spirit, ceaseless work, punctual and high-quality delivery, I put in my best efforts and received a lot of good recognition. I re-discovered my principles and my belief in my work ethic and principles were strengthened. It felt good to know that my boss was happy with my work, basis the feedback he received from end users and other stakeholders. Once again, I had not made any particular effort to strike a special rapport with the boss. I would check his plan for me, communicate what was needed and seek his help whenever required. I realised that focusing only on targets will make dashboards look great. However, for people/the end-users to be transformed, one needed to get a deeper understanding of them even if it meant compromising on some targets. My unwillingness to compromise on my guiding principles and an exploratory approach gave me a great sense of fulfilment and self-worth.
While this style of work continued, there was a transition and I had a new boss, who was quite supportive.
My Key Takeaways
As I look back on my journey, what stands out is the fact that you can effectively manage your boss “passively”. This means managing the boss through your work style, combining hard work, innovation, consistent performance and by continuously learning from related/unrelated sources. Looking back, I realize that I have directed more of my energy towards collaborating with peers and subordinates, than with any of my bosses, to get work done. I believe it is better to invest one’s time and energy in building a sound rapport with other departments, peer group and team members than deploying them and worrying about and adapting one’s style to one’s boss.
My greatest source of learning was from my colleagues both within, and from other departments. While my bosses gave me many ideas and inputs, my colleagues from my own departments and the end user departments provided me with many insights, helpful information, good practices, besides giving me a peek into the realistic, operational view of implementation. This enabled me to create better processes, which were more in sync with the ground realities. This helped me perform my role better while building sound relationships with end users and my colleagues.
My experience has taught me that good work will always triumph over active boss management. Good work benefits everyone and has a larger catchment area. Bosses will get managed, naturally, as a by-product of good work. For me the organization is more important than the boss, so if I am committed to enhancing the organization’s performance, it will also take care of my boss’s aspirations.
I strongly believe that everyone is an equal stakeholder in the organization – nothing more, nothing less.
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