THAT G-D @#$%&$# Boss of Mine!!!!
Ah!! Now don't tell me there hasn't been a time that you haven't had thoughts like that. Well maybe not using those exact words, but words that clearly express your dislike for your boss. Tell the truth, we've all had them at one point in our lives.
Well Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal has done it again in her indomitable style, with another of her great articles. In this one, "The Best Ways to Manage a Demanding Boss." Ms. Shellenbarger is one of the most incisive authors at the Journal. I always try to read her columns! If you don't you should.
I remember my first boss on my first full-time job out of graduate school. We'll just call him by his initials, DB. I hated him. He was the most demanding, intractable men I had ever met or dealt with. Now the truth was -- this was my first job and I hadn't met that many bosses before. So in reality he was actually pretty mild. What he was doing was actually preparing me for the big bad world that lay outside my door. But at the time, I didn't know or understand that. I just knew he was miserable and cantankerous or so I thought. But over the course of the next two or three years I came to realize what he had actually done for me and I came to appreciate what he had done for me. But then, I certainly didn't.
Now after reading Shellenbarger's column, I don't and won't suggest that those demanding bosses don't exist, they do. My more than 40 years in consulting can attest to that. The suggestions she provides to deal with the scenarios contained in her article are actually quite good, so read up and learn from this wise woman. Now there may be others, so if you have others, please comments so other readers, learn from you as well.
Enjoy!!
Bob
1/24/2017
The Link and actual article from the Wall Street Journal are included!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-ways-to-manage-a-demanding-boss-1484666122?tesla=y
Ah!! Now don't tell me there hasn't been a time that you haven't had thoughts like that. Well maybe not using those exact words, but words that clearly express your dislike for your boss. Tell the truth, we've all had them at one point in our lives.
Well Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal has done it again in her indomitable style, with another of her great articles. In this one, "The Best Ways to Manage a Demanding Boss." Ms. Shellenbarger is one of the most incisive authors at the Journal. I always try to read her columns! If you don't you should.
I remember my first boss on my first full-time job out of graduate school. We'll just call him by his initials, DB. I hated him. He was the most demanding, intractable men I had ever met or dealt with. Now the truth was -- this was my first job and I hadn't met that many bosses before. So in reality he was actually pretty mild. What he was doing was actually preparing me for the big bad world that lay outside my door. But at the time, I didn't know or understand that. I just knew he was miserable and cantankerous or so I thought. But over the course of the next two or three years I came to realize what he had actually done for me and I came to appreciate what he had done for me. But then, I certainly didn't.
Now after reading Shellenbarger's column, I don't and won't suggest that those demanding bosses don't exist, they do. My more than 40 years in consulting can attest to that. The suggestions she provides to deal with the scenarios contained in her article are actually quite good, so read up and learn from this wise woman. Now there may be others, so if you have others, please comments so other readers, learn from you as well.
Enjoy!!
Bob
1/24/2017
The Link and actual article from the Wall Street Journal are included!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-ways-to-manage-a-demanding-boss-1484666122?tesla=y
The Best Ways to Manage a Demanding Boss
Don’t ignore—or meekly accept—the requests of demanding supervisors; negotiate a solution
ILLUSTRATION: ZOHAR LAZAR
19 COMMENTS
It feels like a no-win dilemma: Your boss pressures you to finish project after project on deadlines that are too short, or expects you to respond 24/7 to calls, texts and emails.
Do you refuse and risk being seen as whiny? Do you just say yes—and jeopardize peace of mind and personal life?
Agreeing to unreasonable demands invites the boss to assume it’s OK to keep making them. Some coping strategies can make the problem worse, says Sheila Heen, a lecturer at Harvard Law School and co-author of “Difficult Conversations,” a best seller based on more than 20 years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project.
ILLUSTRATION: ZOHAR LAZAR
Agreeing politely to a Monday deadline while thinking that it’s crazy and planning to finish Tuesday may lead the boss to start setting deadlines even earlier, to provide a margin of safety, says Prof. Heen. And dodging intrusive texts, calls or emails can cause a manager to pursue you even more aggressively.
A better route is to lay the groundwork for negotiating a solution. Mirror the boss’s sense of urgency, says Tim Allard, co-owner of Odyssey Inc., a Charlottesville, Va., executive and business consulting firm. A Type-A boss gets even more keyed up when an employee gives a muted, laid-back response to what the boss sees as an urgent request, Mr. Allard says.
“That doesn’t mean you have to become a raving lunatic like the boss, but you have to understand that for some bosses everything is a priority, and you have to reassure them that you get it,” he says.
ILLUSTRATION: ZOHAR LAZAR
Some demanding bosses are desirable because their careers are on the rise and they attract the most exciting projects, advancing employees’ careers along with theirs.
Others, however, are anxious, disorganized or so focused on the next crisis that they aren’t able to keep track of what their employees are working on. Whatever the case, be prepared to explain the projects you’re already working on and how long they’re likely to take.
When the boss tries to pile on another, ask for help setting priorities and deciding which projects to put on hold so you can tackle the latest one, says Cali Williams Yost, a Madison, N.J., workplace-flexibility consultant.
Beth Fisher-Yoshida, director of the negotiation and conflict resolution program at Columbia University, suggests looking for ways to modify the project, such as agreeing to complete part of it by the deadline and the rest later. Explore whether any of the work could be delegated to co-workers.
PHOTO: ZOHAR LAZAR
If it’s boundless access to your time the boss wants, negotiate some boundaries. One accounting manager deflected a stream of emails, texts and calls from her boss every evening by promising to check in and answer them at 9 o’clock every night, says Amy Cooper Hakim, a Boca Raton, Fla., management consultant who coached the manager.
Explain that good boundaries are relevant to your job: “In order for me to be most productive at work, I need to attend to other obligations when I’m away,” says Dr. Hakim, co-author of “Working with Difficult People,” which includes strategies for dealing with aggressive managers
ILLUSTRATION: ZOHAR LAZAR
When a new boss on a previous job asked Connie Thanasoulis to work every Saturday during the summer, she apologized and refused, saying, “I have things going on all the time—I’m in a wedding, I have a family barbecue,” says Ms. Thanasoulis, co-founder of SixFigureStart, a New York City career-coaching firm.
She managed to satisfy the boss by working 12-hour days during the week. “Sometimes it’s good to extend yourself. If you have a boss who is ambitious and doing exciting things, you can ride their coattails a little and learn a tremendous amount,” Ms. Thanasoulis says.
Kristin Stone, of Yarmouth, Mass., was so stressed by a demanding boss on a previous job at a financial-services company that she did deep-breathing exercises when the boss pressured her and her team to win sales contests.
She made a decision to cooperate, however, because she knew the manager respected her, appreciated her hard work and would help her advance. “If you benefit by getting better performance evaluations and strengthening your own skills, there’s no loss for you—only a gain,” says Ms. Stone, who blogs about career management and other self-improvement topics at LifeLearningToday.com.
The boss soon promoted her, and continued to help advance her career for several years into new jobs under mellower supervisors.
Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com