Dear Friends,

What's the secret of successful management? Easy. The capacity to manage the boss. Mastering this art won't just make you a better manager; it will make your boss look smarter, too. Here's a two-part guide to boss management.

Some Key Principles

To learn the ways of boss management, you need to recognize a couple of fundamental truths, according to psychologist Dr. Carl Robinson, principal of Advanced Leadership Consulting in Seattle:

Truth #1: Managers' careers are often made or broken based on their relationship with the boss.

Truth #2: The relationship is a partnership. The management process is actually a collaborative effort between you and the boss. "Your boss shouldn't be the only person thinking about how to motivate and guide people," says Robinson. "Managers and executives should relate to each other as peers and colleagues."

Building the Relationship: The Importance of Trust

With these principles in mind, you should set out to build a relationship with your boss. Trust must be the foundation on which everything else rests. The process of trust building starts the moment you apply for the job. Your role is to establish credibility during the hiring process. How? By submitting an accurate résumé  and being honest and forthright during job interviews and correspondence.

The trust-building process continues after you land the job. Your role, says Robinson, is to provide sound recommendations to your boss. You must also ensure that the boss gets credit for successful initiatives and is spared the blame for failures. "The CEO is the one blamed and praised for the results of the organization," says M. Sean Agnew, managing executive director/CEO of Chicago-based M. Sean Agnew Enterprises LLC.

The Bottom Line: Recognize that the boss is looking to you not just for guidance but for successes that will advance his or her own career.

The Executive Ego & the Importance of Empathy

Recognition of the importance of your role in the boss's own career is rooted in another skill you need to build a successful partnership with your boss: The capacity to empathize with the boss. "Putting yourself in the boss's shoes," says Robinson, "gives you the power to frame ideas and initiatives in terms of the boss's priorities and win his support."

Empathy is a quality that's easy to describe but hard to achieve. You can strengthen your capacity to empathize with the boss if you recognize and accept the executive ego. "The challenge is to manage the CEO's narcissism," advises Dr. Kerry J. Sulkowicz, a psychiatrist and founder and principal of The Boswell Group LLC in New York.

"That involves, among other things, learning how to give advice that is direct and helpful, while also respecting the CEO's variable need to maintain his/her status in the hierarchy," adds Sulkowicz. "An appreciation of the CEO's essential isolation and loneliness and the CEO's need for assistance in dealing with uncertainty is also important."

Conclusion

So far, we've discussed the preconditions and qualities necessary to build a successful relationship with your boss. Next week, in Part 2 of this series, we'll discuss communication and relationship management strategies.

Wishing you Career Success,

Lauryn Franzoni
ExecuNet
www.execunet.com.

I WORK FOR A JERK

In a recent survey of employees who had recently quit their jobs, a "disagreeable boss" was listed as the number one reason for quitting (50 percent). Within this group, only one in five said they tried to talk to the boss about their concerns.

Source: VitalSmarts, www.vitalsmarts.com.

MEMBER REPLY

Resumes that Show Your Age

Editor's Note: In last week's column, Lauryn discussed whether a 57-year-old job applicant worried about age discrimination should list dates of graduation and other dates that might reveal his age. Her advice: Don't go back more than 10 to 15 years unless the item is vital to the position. Here's how one member responded to Lauryn's advice:

Regarding age descrimination, I located an opportunity for a contract position through networking, and was asked to submit my resume. The position was in my part of the country, Ontario, but the agency handling the placement was in Alberta. The agency representative called me to set a date and time for a telephone interview.

During the interview, my experience and qualifications for the position were discussed. Then the questions turned to more 'background experience' topics and I mentioned that I had an apprenticeship in machine design and construction. The interviewer questioned this and asked what and where this was done. When I explained that this was done in England, and was obviously before anything listed on my resume, she jumped in with a comment that my resume was deliberately misleading. She said that I was much older than indicated by the information on the resume, and terminated the interview.

Apparently, she had calculated my age from the date I graduated from university, with an honours degree taken part-time, and from technical college, also part-time. This was from a representative of an international placement agency who should have known better!

John Lazenby
john@practicalsafety.ca

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