Dear SafetyXChange Members:

"The art of managing up, that is, managing your boss, is the secret of successful executives and managers. Those who master the art are more effective and make their bosses look smart too." These wise words come from psychologist Carl Robinson, principal of Advanced Leadership Consulting in Seattle. This article will give you some pointers on how to manage your own CEO.

Building the CEO Relationship

CEOs are typically seen as sources of motivation and direction. But what's often overlooked is the fact that they not only deliver but receive motivation and direction from the persons below them, including the safety director. "Your boss shouldn't be the only one thinking about how to motivate and guide." It's a two-way street. "You and your boss need to relate to each other as peers and colleagues," Robinson remarks.

Building the trust necessary to support such a relationship begins on and even before your (or the CEO's) first day on the job. And it takes a deliberate effort. Pointers:

Understanding the Executive Ego: One of the preconditions of success in building a relationship with the CEO is an understanding of and a capacity to manage the narcissism of the CEO. What's called for is a balance between the confidence to give direct and candid advice and respect for the CEO's need to maintain his/her status in the hierarchy, explains Dr. Kerry J. Sulkowicz, a psychiatrist and founder and principal of The Boswell Group LLC in New York. "An appreciation of the CEO's essential isolation and loneliness and the CEO's need for assistance in dealing with a lot of uncertainty is also important."

Allocation of Risk: "Develop a pattern of making suggestions to your boss on action items or initiatives where he or she will get the credit if all goes well, but where you'll assume the risk if not," suggests recruiter Mark Jaffe of Wyatt & Jaffe in Minneapolis. "Your boss will not only be taking sound guidance from you, but will actually be cashing in on the success of your ideas." Once you establish trust, you should ask ? and expect ? to share more of the credit for the successes while still being prepared to shoulder your share of the blame for the failures.

Seeing Things from the CEO's Perspective: To build a successful relationship, you must also learn to see things from the CEO's perspective. "Always put yourself in the CEO's shoes and do your best to ensure his success," advises Alex Ramsey, president of LodeStar Universal in Dallas. "If you can see things from his point of view, you also will be more likely to frame whatever the issue is in terms of his priorities first, easing into the other good reasons for doing whatever it is afterwards."

Candor and Diplomacy: To gain and maintain the boss's respect, you must speak candidly and be prepared to disagree. It's not only what you say but how you say it when you are directing upper management. The difference between gaining a fan and getting fired can all be in the language that you use.

The key is to communicate strategically with a balanced view and an understanding of cooperative ? rather than combative ? language and attitude. To speak respectfully but confidently and with succinct but powerful points supports solutions that pay off for the company and all those involved.

"The boss's ego will dictate the degree of directness and diplomacy necessary to deliver the message," notes Robinson. Criticizing or disagreeing with an insecure or egotistical boss takes a lot of finesse. Sometimes the indirect approach works best. "For example," says Robinson, "talking about the foibles of another CEO (what you heard through the grapevine or in the press) is one way to point out a problem with your own CEO."

Conclusion

Managing up is indeed an art. It requires not just intelligence but a combination of people management and communication skills. Above all, it takes confidence. "You need to think of yourself as a consultant," advises Robinson, "and ask yourself: what does my client (the boss) need? How do I best serve my client?" You then must deliver the goods. If you do this, you will gain not only the boss's confidence but his/her dependence. The boss will come to rely on you to make him/her look good.

Wishing you career success!

Lauryn Franzoni
ExecuNet
www.execunet.com

BY THE NUMBERS

How to Communicate with Your CEO

By Glenn Demby

Lauryn's article is full of insight on how to cultivate a successful relationship with your CEO or boss. But here's the problem: You can't build a relationship with the boss, or anybody else for that matter, unless you get a chance to talk to the person. That's not as simple as it sounds. After all, CEOs are typically in their own space ? physically and mentally ? and hard to reach.

The good news: A new survey of 150 senior executives from Fortune 1000 companies offers some insight on how CEOs communicate with people in their organization. The findings:

71: The percentage that rely on e-mail most often (as compared to 27% five years ago)

14: The percentage that rely on in-person/face-to-face conversations most often (as compared to 24% five years ago)

13: The percentage that rely on telephone conversations most often (as compared to 48% five years ago)

Source: www.officeteam.com.

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