What Your Boss Wants

Seriously. What your boss wants from you.

Everyone has to “deal” with their boss. Some are lucky enough to not consider it “dealing with” but, rather, partnering with their boss to achieve a company goal both aim for and believe in. Perhaps the phrase “partnering with your boss” might be semantics, but for me it’s a mindset shift that makes or breaks the workplace and whether I want to be there.

Here are some ideas I’ve had with people who have reported to me in the past that made things easier for both of us.

Reliability

First and foremost, above everything else, we want to work with people we feel are reliable. Even in a friendship setting, a flake is often tolerated for only so long. Reliability means a boss can set things in motion and trust that it will get done. If it can’t be done, reliability means providing the updates your boss needs so he/she can help.

What is part of reliability?

• Doing what you say you’ll do
• Likewise, no over-committing! Know your limits and state them.
• Punctuality
• Owning the work (not blaming)
• Taking your job seriously
• Not being lazy about thinking (e.g. not asking questions you can fully research on your own)

If you cannot be counted on as a reliable employee, chances are the relationship with your boss is a subordinate/taking direction type relationship. You likely need to be directed, rather than trusted.

You were hired among many candidates to do your job. Show that you can do it with consistency, competence, and responsibility. These are traits of a reliable employee.

Clarity

When trying to lead a group, the group wants clarity of purpose and instruction, and likewise the leader wants clarity of what’s going on. No one wants to waste time. Wasted time often comes out as people complaining about too many meetings (especially impromptu ones), and having to go through filing bureaucratic reports. Finding and transmitting clarity means valuing people’s time and respecting their share of the work.

Clarity also implies that you keep your boss apprised of what is going on. Especially in my field (software engineering), people love to put on the headphones and just hack away at their assigned work. For days, if you let them. This is why I love Scrum project methodology and love having morning stand-ups to see where things are headed. If you aren’t meeting with your boss every day, or communicating daily what’s going on with you and your teams, something’s amiss.

Find Balanced Solutions

First-rate bosses want you to think up a good solution to the problem at hand. Sometimes this means fixing things with the best “bang for the buck”. Acknowledge that your work can get out faster but it will mean re-work later. Judge that cost against pressures or deadlines, but never make these decisions out of laziness. Do it the best you can in the time you’ve committed to, and make note to explain what these choices will mean down the line. Sometimes shortcuts are necessary, other times they are unacceptable.

Drive for Results

Don’t focus on conflict, because that is inevitable in any organization. Disagreement is part and parcel to working with the best minds.

Focus on finding results. If someone screwed up your work, it’s easy to ascribe blame and let the ensuing ripple focus the problem away from you. It’s not very useful to chalk mistakes up to some personal scoreboard. While bosses are there to help and manage the glitches of getting things done, they don’t need to spend time mitigating unnecessary drama and politics. Come to each new internal problem with a mindset of, “Okay, so what can we do right now to get where we were going?”. Even in the face of a disaster, this attitude goes a long way toward bringing success and resilience to everyone.

Loyalty

A person who stands by their boss will be more effective in an organization. If your boss is unfit for such loyalty, it’s time to start looking for your next one, but do not take on commitments then sit there and complain about management to your peers and colleagues. It only reduces you to someone who talks smack behind others’ backs.

Loyalty is a (willfully) forgotten concept in corporate America nowadays. Most of us have been through layoffs and budget cuts and seen jobs evaporate with little more than a sorry. Why be loyal to that? Well, loyalty to your immediate boss requires that he/she is a worthwhile person to follow. Some of my favorite bosses were not always the most renowned in the company. But I’ve seen these same bosses come to my defense, and never heard them speak ill of me in front of others (they never threw me under a bus). They were fiercely loyal to their teams and made sure the teams were protected from the many forces that would negatively distract or sway our work.

This is how it should also be upwards. Follow your leader and you will be recognized as reliable. Disagree and question where applicable, but always with the intention to do what is required by your boss. There are remedies for voicing your concerns, gripes, or hangups with bad bosses. But if you want to be an excellent employee, stick by your boss and a bad situation just might improve.

Now I know that much of this may sound idealized and not practical. Most companies operate on a level of dysfunction that is conducive to unreal expectations, stretching people too thin, politics, water-cooler talk, beer bitching sessions, and overall inefficiency and drama. I’m telling you: There are companies that aren’t like that. There are high-performing teams with people who, even if they don’t like their work, do it with pride and ownership. There are bosses out there who look out for the best of their company while looking out for the best for their employees. There are leaders out there who value culture and understand what it takes for sane growth (as opposed to the vaunted “insane growth”).

You need but look.

Finding that, don’t encourage or propagate behaviors that poison the culture. Strive to be the best person you can be where you are, even if you are the person who has to take lots of breaks to de-stress, has to play an hour of arcade games during the day to reset the tired brain, or has to devour an order of carne asada fries to make up for an extremely laborious task. Be the best of you, and give that to your boss.

It is what your boss has wanted from the moment you accepted the job.