Relationship with Boss - Essay Example

 Analysis of Relationship with Boss Overview of the Paper The paper has been developed with the objective of analyzing the relationship between a boss and his or her subordinate in an organization. The discussion throughout the paper will be concentrated upon two articles based on management of relationship with the boss. One is named as “Managing Your Boss” by John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter and the other is “20 Questions About Your Boss” by Jill Geisler. The subordinate considered in this research paper is the manager of a retail chain and the boss is the regional operations director. The relationship between the subordinate and her boss will be analyzed with specific reference to the various dimensions of the two articles. The paper is based on the modern concept of maintaining organizational relationship between the boss and the subordinate. The traditional concept was top-down approach and there was no question of managing the relationship with the boss. However, in the modern context, the concept has changed and the both-way approach has begun to prevail within the various organizations. In present times, the subordinates are required to develop certain traits through which their relationship with the boss can be managed effectively. According to Geisler (2011), knowledge about the working habits of the boss is essential for the subordinates in order to manage the relationship. It has also been observed that the subordinates should communicate with the boss in the way which is liked by the latter. The values of the boss are required to be recognized by the subordinate and he or she should try to align the boss’s values with his or her own. The structure of this paper will be focused upon the various approaches mentioned by the writers of the two articles. Understanding Oneself (Subordinate) In this section of the research paper, the understanding of the subordinate or the manager of the retail chain (about herself) will be discussed. The manager should be specific about the fact that in her relationship with the boss, she is holding one part, the other part being the boss. Hence, for making the relationship effective, the manager should understand her own necessities along with strengths and weaknesses and personal style. Although it is not possible to change the nature of any person and so do the boss and the subordinate, the manager should strive for recognizing her personal traits that are hindering the growth of effective relationship with the boss. The manager should then try out ways through which her discrepancies can be eradicated and the relationship can be made worthy. For understanding herself in the most appropriate way, the manager can undertake self assessment session where she can make use of a long questionnaire summarizing her various psychological patterns (Personality Lab, 2011). For instance, “I can generate strong bonding with the people whom I meet”. The manager can then follow the process of applying rating scale in order to rate herself. The criteria of the rating scale can include ‘strongly disagree’, ‘disagree’, ‘undecided’, ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ (Purdue University, 2011). These processes would help the manager in gaining insights upon her self-awareness aspects. Generating truths about oneself and following actions towards them would, perhaps, be difficult for the manger but it will not be an impossible task. Along with the utilization of the questionnaire, the manager can also reflect adequately upon her past experience within the organization. For example, the manager can realize that during her past, she was not good enough in handling organizational issues where emotions of her peers were involved. For generating her efficiency in handling the emotional issues, she can approach her boss whenever she realizes that such issues will be required to be handled. The discussions that will be undertaken between the manager and her boss will enhance the level of mutually dependent nature of both the persons. The outcome of the discussion will even facilitate the manager in identifying areas where she is required to improve. However, it is the nature of certain subordinates to oppose to the boss’ decision and if this nature predominates during the discussion session as well, the corrective action intended by the subordinate will go in vain. The nature of rebelling against the boss can be termed as one of the personal styles of the subordinates. If the style of the subordinate is such, then he or she would revolt against a correct decision of the boss. Through such personal style, the subordinate actually wants his or her boss to remain cautious about taking decision against him or her (Authenticity Consulting, LLC, 2011). But, the consequences of such rebelling nature against the boss should also be reviewed by such subordinate. The continuous failure of sustaining within organization will reveal the fact to the subordinate that rebelling against the boss is not always good. In this context, the manager of the retail chain or the subordinate should take a past review of her working experience and try to diagnose the reasons for which she had been punished (if in any case). The subordinate who accurately assesses oneself would signify such nature as a weakness and would find out ways through which he or she can reduce or eradicate the number of rebellions. According to the psychologists, such rebelling nature of the subordinates is termed as ‘counter-dependent behavior’. Nonetheless, the subordinate can transform this weakness into strength, if only he or she wishes to do so. The inverse of such situation can also exist within the organization. The manager can realize through self assessment that she has the nature of accepting every decision of her boss without evaluating the correctness or wrongness of the particular decision. In such a scenario, although her relationship with her boss will be better than the previous case, the consequences can harm her personal benefits in turn. Hence, the relationship will go smooth if the subordinate can assess the consequence of a decision of her boss with respect to both her own goal as well as the organization in the most appropriate way. However, for assessing the consequences of the decision, the manger should have precise hold upon the organizational goals and objectives. The nature of the subordinate and the boss can be any, be it counter-depending or mutually dependent or even over-dependent on each other. The manger should understand herself in the most accurate way so as to avoid any adverse consequence for the organization and her peer due to a decision. Understanding the Boss The boss in the paper is the regional operations director and understanding him is the responsibility of the manager in the retail chain or the concerned subordinate. Along with gaining insights of the boss’s context, it is also essential for the subordinate to understand her own state of affairs. All the subordinates are not accustomed in spending time to understand their respective bosses, although they should do so in order to enhance the degree of their relationship with the bosses. For understanding the boss completely, it is essential that the manager realizes the goals and the objectives that the boss possesses. The level of pressure that the boss faces from his or her higher authorities and also from the business environment is required to be assessed by the manager. Information about every characteristic of the boss is required for the subordinate if he or she wants to deal effectively with the boss and generate a cordial relationship. The blind spots should be recognized as these induce the status of relationship between the boss and the subordinate. The preferred style of working of the boss should also be identified by the subordinate that would assist them in avoiding such situations to prevail that annoys the boss. Apart from all the information that the subordinates are required to gather about their boss, the most important is the information about objectives of the boss. For instance, the boss might want to enhance upon the overall performance of the company. An immediate subordinate to him might misread the objective of his boss and concentrate heavily upon implementing strategies for generating sales. Ultimately, the strategy for generating sales might fail and in that case the goal of neither the boss nor the organization would be satisfied. Hence, as a consequence of the failure, both the subordinate as well as the boss might be harmed and can even lead to termination of job in case the consequences are the worst. In this way, the inadequate information about the objectives of the boss would give rise to unpleasant relationship between the boss and the subordinate. The manager should build on a position where she can deliver solutions to the problems of her boss and not such a position when the problems of her boss get worse. The manger, should, however remain committed and loyal to her boss in order to make the problem solving activity effective (Turk, 2007). The outlook and the agenda of the boss are required to be thoroughly assessed by the manager in order to gain more in-depth overview for measuring the boss’ objectives. Often the subordinates hold the notion that they are quite familiar with the goals and pressures of the boss, but they fail to assess the strengths and the weaknesses of the boss (Gehman, 2004). These can be conveniently understood by the subordinate if they place themselves at the position of their boss and try to assess the situations around. Exploration in this way can at times introduce the subordinates to certain facts that can be termed to be common between them and their boss. Dependence upon the strengths of the boss is perhaps another essential requirement for the manager so that their strengths can be effectively utilized. Meeting the boss for the expertise that he possess would be the best possible way through which utilization of his strengths can take place. The manager should approach the managers for requesting him to use his time and resources in the most effectual way. This would make the boss feel that his or her subordinates respect the skills and expertise that he or she possesses (Robbins, 2006). For handling the weaknesses of the boss, the manger should try to compensate for the weaknesses. The manager can intentionally make the boss feel that she cares for safeguarding his interests and also the interest of the organization as a whole. For evaluating as to whether comprehensive knowledge about the boss has been acquired by the manager, she can make use of few or all of the 20 questions suggested by Geisler (2011). As per the information gathered about the regional operations director, the following aspects can be answered by the subordinate or the manager of the retail chain: 1. Preferred method of giving information to me: Personal meeting 2. Preferred method of getting information from me: Personal meeting 3. Biggest current pressure: Pressure from the zonal operations director to increase sales 4. Passion outside of work: Playing video games 5. Has expertise in: Dealing with customers 6. Lacks expertise in: Keeping temperament under control in every adverse situation 7. Handles pressure by: Utilizing the possible expertise of each employee in the firm 8. Would be really hurt if someone: Does not follow his order 9. Is respected by her/his boss for: Carrying out successfully every task assigned to him 10. Respect others for: Personal values and level of commitment Source: (Geisler, 2011). Developing and Managing Relationship between the Boss and the Subordinate The development and maintenance of effective relationship between the boss and the subordinate can become possible only after the subordinate has gathered sufficient information about both herself as well as her boss. The manager can create such a working environment where she can work with her boss in a cohesive manner and in a way that is suitable for both of them. The cohesive relationship between the boss and the manager is characterized by compatible styles of working, mutual expectations, well flow of information, dependability and honesty and efficient utilization of time and resources. Understanding about the nature of herself and also her boss would aid the manager in recognizing the areas where the working styles of both of them differ. If the manager can become expertise with the identification of the differences in work styles, then she can adjust her own styles with her boss during meetings. Active listening traits of the manager would enhance the stock of information about her boss’s nature with due course of time. The manager should be very careful that a little variation in her working styles with that of her boss would hamper the decision making process and hence would ultimately hinder the organizational benefits. The traits of the bosses who are highly involved in the process of decision making should be adequately adopted by the manger so as to bring about more compatibility within the styles of working (Cabarro and Kotter, 1980). It would be incorrect for the manager to assume that she has explicit hold over the aspects that are expected by her boss. Although a few of the bosses depict their expectations in detail to their subordinates, most of them do not do so. Even if the bosses state their expectations clearly, they can vary with the passage of time and can increase as well as decrease. Planned discussion with the boss regarding his expectation from the manager would be effective in this scenario. The manager’s expectations are also required to be communicated to the boss in order to assess whether they are realistic or not from the perspective of the boss. The manager should convince the boss to recognize the most essential ones for the fulfillment of organizational objectives (Bhawuk and Ferris, 2000). It is the typical nature of the subordinates to underrate the amount of information that are required to be processed to their boss. In the similar way, the rate of information that they are required to hold are also underestimated. Managing of the information flow in the upward direction within the organization would rather become difficult for the manager if the boss is not willing to listen to the problems that his subordinates are facing. Thus, it is the responsibility of the manager or the subordinate to effectively communicate any information to her boss, be it good or bad. The information about the preferred style of working of the boss would be helpful for the manager in this respect. The manger can then convey the messages or information in acceptable way to her boss (Cabarro and Kotter, 1980). The most painful and irksome task of a boss is to rely upon an employee whom he does not trust and knows the level of commitment. It is next to impossible for a boss to assign task to a subordinate who always misses the deadlines. For helping the boss in this regard, the trustworthy subordinates should make promises to the extent which he or she can achieve for the target of his or her boss (International Research Center on Organizations, 2005). If the subordinate fails to keep promise continuously, then he would be termed as dishonest and uncommitted. Hence, for the manager of the retail chain, it would be better to commit target to her boss about which she is confident of achieving. The bosses are perhaps, all the time run short of their time and energy. For each and every request being placed by the subordinate, the boss is required to utilize some or all of his available resources. So the subordinate should perceive significant concern towards utilizing the boss’ resources in an effective way. The subordinate should very carefully assess the prevailing issues within the organization so as to find out the most essential ones that cannot be handled without the boss’ consent. The identification of those issues should again be dependent upon the goals and objectives of every stakeholder within the organization (Cabarro and Kotter, 1980). References Authenticity Consulting, LLC. (2011). Understanding Yourself as an Instrument of Change. Retrieved from http://managementhelp.org/misc/fp-self.pdf Bhawuk, D. P. S. and Ferris, G. R. (2000). Value Added Relationship Management. Retrieved from http://www.delhibusinessreview.org/v_1n2/dbrv1n2c.pdf Gabarro, J. J. and Kotter, J. P. (1980). Managing Your Boss. Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/pubhealth/isett/Session%2004/Gabarro%20and%20Kotter%202005%20Managing%20your%20boss.pdf Gehman, A. (2004). Handling a Bad Boss. Retrieved from http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/class/clis724/SpecialLibrariesHandbook/bad%20boss.pdf Geisler, J. (2011). 20 Questions About Your Boss. Retrieved from http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/leadership-management/what-great-bosses-know/3437/20-questions-about-your-boss/ International Research Center on Organizations. (2005). Trust in Boss-Subordinate Relationships. Retrieved from http://www.iese.edu/es/files/IRCO-Cross-cultural-trustin_tcm5-6120.pdf Purdue University. (2011). Understanding Yourself. Retrieved from http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/extension/programs/fbm21/form11.htm Personality Lab. (2011). Understand Yourself Personality Test. Retrieved from http://www.personalitylab.org/tests/ccq_self.htm Robbins, S. (2006). Understand What Motivates Your Boss. Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5252.html Turk, W. (2007). The Art of Managing Up. Retrieved from http://www.uthscsa.edu/gme/documents/TheArtofManagingUp.pdf Read More