Managing the Manager
No doubt, human beings have always had to manage their bosses. In fact, mismanaging your relationship with emperors, kings, and the like could prove downright fatal in bygone years (and still can in some places). The stakes aren’t usually quite that high in companies today, but the need for boss management has seldom been more compelling.
There are at least a couple of reasons for this. First, many – probably most – workers hold their jobs at the discretion of their bosses. Union representation is on the decline in much of the world, meaning that employees are increasingly on their own when dealing with bosses. There are, of course, a variety of labor and civil rights laws, but these are seldom guarantees of fair treatment from supervisors.
Second, employees at every level need to show initiative if their organizations are going to successfully compete in a fast-paced, global marketplace. Bosses can’t be expected to know everything, and employees can’t expect their bosses to solve every problem or meet every demand as it arises. Collaboration has become the watchword of the day, and the inability of people to work well with their bosses harms not just careers but entire organizations.
In a recently republished Harvard Business Review classic article, authors John J. Grabarro and John P. Kotter point to the example of a company that lost $2 million to $5 million as a result of a poor working relationship between an executive and one of his direct reports. This wasn’t just a matter of a personality conflict, they note. The subordinate manager failed to adequately compensate for the fact that his boss lacked good people-management skills and failed to appreciate how mutually dependent he and his boss were.
In many cases, subordinates dealing with a difficult boss will avoid him or her altogether and try to get their jobs done on their own. In his new book, Was Your Boss Raised by Wolves?, HRI Executive-in-Residence and former Corporate Vice President of People Resources for Cigna Corporation Gerald M. Groe calls this “boss phobia.” He argues that people who are truly afraid of their boss wind up communicating poorly with him or her and becoming hesitant in how they do their jobs. This leads to performance problems and a vicious cycle in which the boss and the subordinate grow ever more estranged from one another.
Groe thinks it’s crucial for subordinates to recognize their and their boss’s interdependence. “You need each other to achieve shared objectives, and it is in your best interest to ensure that your work and the work of your boss are aligned and mutually supportive,” he writes. “This alignment is best accomplished by you managing up” (p. 86).
Using the metaphor of wolves – social creatures renowned for their abilities to work together as a single unit – Groe goes on to offer practical advice for managing bosses more effectively: things such as getting to know your boss better, seeing the world from his or her perspective, gaining a better understanding of your boss’s goals, regularly reporting on progress toward those goals, making sure disagreements are private and polite, and, if needed, initiating meetings with your boss.
How subordinates should manage their boss will depend, of course, on what kind of boss they have and on their own personalities. Some people, for example, tend to resent all types of authority figures, however excellent their managerial skills. Groe provides a series of quizzes to help people get a fix on what kind of boss they have, how they tend to respond to him or her, and what their best plans of action might be.
Of course, there are some toxic bosses out there who are virtually unmanageable. They’re loathed, feared and downright dangerous (Stern, 2004). In some cases, they may actually be – and not just seem like – psychopaths. That is, they are part of the 1% of the population made up of charming liars and manipulators who lack a conscience.
Robert Hare, creator of the Psychopathy Checklist, which is a standard tool used to diagnose psychopaths, states, “There are certainly more people in the business world who would score high in the psychopathic dimension than in the general population. You find them in any organization where, by the nature of one’s position, you have power and control over other people and the opportunity to get something” (Deutschman, 2005). He suggests that some of the executives involved in the more notorious business scandals of recent years had psychopathic tendencies. When subordinates come across bosses like this, the best bet is often to just get out fast.
In most cases, though, subordinates can find a way to collaborate more effectively with their bosses by gaining a greater insight into their own and their boss’s characters and by arriving at common-sense accommodations. For social animals like human beings, such “pack wisdom” may help to ensure the survival of organizations as well as individual careers.
For more on Gerald M. Groe and Was Your Boss Raised by Wolves?, please click here.
For more on other leadership-related issues, please see HRI’s Leadership Knowledge Center.
For more on Harvard Business Review’s “Managing Your Boss,” click here.
For more on Fast Company’s “Is Your Boss a Psychopath?” click here.
For another article called “Managing Your Boss,” this one from the American Academy of Family Physicians, click here.
For a question-and-answer piece called “How to Manage Your Boss,” click here.
Documents used in the preparation of this TrendWatcher include:
Deutschman, Alan. “Is Your Boss a Psychopath?” Fast Company, July 2005, pp. 44-51.
Gabarro, John J. and John P. Kotter. “Managing Your Boss.” Harvard Business Review, January 2005 (original publication in 1980), pp. 92-99.
Groe, Gerald M. Was Your Boss Raised by Wolves? Surviving the Organizational Food Chain. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 2005.
Stern, Stefan. “How to Manage Your Boss.” Management Today. ProQuest. October 2004.
There are at least a couple of reasons for this. First, many – probably most – workers hold their jobs at the discretion of their bosses. Union representation is on the decline in much of the world, meaning that employees are increasingly on their own when dealing with bosses. There are, of course, a variety of labor and civil rights laws, but these are seldom guarantees of fair treatment from supervisors.
Second, employees at every level need to show initiative if their organizations are going to successfully compete in a fast-paced, global marketplace. Bosses can’t be expected to know everything, and employees can’t expect their bosses to solve every problem or meet every demand as it arises. Collaboration has become the watchword of the day, and the inability of people to work well with their bosses harms not just careers but entire organizations.
In a recently republished Harvard Business Review classic article, authors John J. Grabarro and John P. Kotter point to the example of a company that lost $2 million to $5 million as a result of a poor working relationship between an executive and one of his direct reports. This wasn’t just a matter of a personality conflict, they note. The subordinate manager failed to adequately compensate for the fact that his boss lacked good people-management skills and failed to appreciate how mutually dependent he and his boss were.
In many cases, subordinates dealing with a difficult boss will avoid him or her altogether and try to get their jobs done on their own. In his new book, Was Your Boss Raised by Wolves?, HRI Executive-in-Residence and former Corporate Vice President of People Resources for Cigna Corporation Gerald M. Groe calls this “boss phobia.” He argues that people who are truly afraid of their boss wind up communicating poorly with him or her and becoming hesitant in how they do their jobs. This leads to performance problems and a vicious cycle in which the boss and the subordinate grow ever more estranged from one another.
Groe thinks it’s crucial for subordinates to recognize their and their boss’s interdependence. “You need each other to achieve shared objectives, and it is in your best interest to ensure that your work and the work of your boss are aligned and mutually supportive,” he writes. “This alignment is best accomplished by you managing up” (p. 86).
Using the metaphor of wolves – social creatures renowned for their abilities to work together as a single unit – Groe goes on to offer practical advice for managing bosses more effectively: things such as getting to know your boss better, seeing the world from his or her perspective, gaining a better understanding of your boss’s goals, regularly reporting on progress toward those goals, making sure disagreements are private and polite, and, if needed, initiating meetings with your boss.
How subordinates should manage their boss will depend, of course, on what kind of boss they have and on their own personalities. Some people, for example, tend to resent all types of authority figures, however excellent their managerial skills. Groe provides a series of quizzes to help people get a fix on what kind of boss they have, how they tend to respond to him or her, and what their best plans of action might be.
Of course, there are some toxic bosses out there who are virtually unmanageable. They’re loathed, feared and downright dangerous (Stern, 2004). In some cases, they may actually be – and not just seem like – psychopaths. That is, they are part of the 1% of the population made up of charming liars and manipulators who lack a conscience.
Robert Hare, creator of the Psychopathy Checklist, which is a standard tool used to diagnose psychopaths, states, “There are certainly more people in the business world who would score high in the psychopathic dimension than in the general population. You find them in any organization where, by the nature of one’s position, you have power and control over other people and the opportunity to get something” (Deutschman, 2005). He suggests that some of the executives involved in the more notorious business scandals of recent years had psychopathic tendencies. When subordinates come across bosses like this, the best bet is often to just get out fast.
In most cases, though, subordinates can find a way to collaborate more effectively with their bosses by gaining a greater insight into their own and their boss’s characters and by arriving at common-sense accommodations. For social animals like human beings, such “pack wisdom” may help to ensure the survival of organizations as well as individual careers.
For more on Gerald M. Groe and Was Your Boss Raised by Wolves?, please click here.
For more on other leadership-related issues, please see HRI’s Leadership Knowledge Center.
For more on Harvard Business Review’s “Managing Your Boss,” click here.
For more on Fast Company’s “Is Your Boss a Psychopath?” click here.
For another article called “Managing Your Boss,” this one from the American Academy of Family Physicians, click here.
For a question-and-answer piece called “How to Manage Your Boss,” click here.
Documents used in the preparation of this TrendWatcher include:
Deutschman, Alan. “Is Your Boss a Psychopath?” Fast Company, July 2005, pp. 44-51.
Gabarro, John J. and John P. Kotter. “Managing Your Boss.” Harvard Business Review, January 2005 (original publication in 1980), pp. 92-99.
Groe, Gerald M. Was Your Boss Raised by Wolves? Surviving the Organizational Food Chain. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 2005.
Stern, Stefan. “How to Manage Your Boss.” Management Today. ProQuest. October 2004.