Building the Relationship with Your Boss (WBS)

It was a delight to present “How to Win Over Your Boss” to the Executive MBA group at Warwick Business School on 1st October.

Lots of discussion, precious little time to answer all the questions, and I am now keeping my promise to provide you all with more resources, and some brief answers to outstanding questions.

Q: How can I avoid being hired by a bad boss in the first place?

A: Without doubt, during the hiring process you need to be vigilant. Here are some quick-fire tips to throw into the melting pot:

At interview, remember that if you are confident, make it two-way. You are selling yourself to your prospective boss, but they are also selling themselves to you too. If not, red flag number one!
Ask them questions to get under the skin of how they operate. Use your intelligence, but along the lines of “What’s your leadership style?” “How to you provide support to your team?” “What team building have you done recently?” Look into the whites of their eyes and watch their body language. Terse answers, avoidance/distraction techniques, etc. are red flags here too.
Try to find out about turnover, why your predecessor left, what problems/challenges does the team have at the moment etc. Again, these will give you insights into what is really going on, but make sure to consider these answers along with other evidence/clues you are picking up.
Ask about the team culture. Not fixed expectations here, but useful intelligence to factor in.
Ask yourself, would I be happy to work for this person, really happy. Nay, would you be excited with be on their team. Trust your instincts. Most of the time, when people end up with a bad boss, they had a whiff of it before they started, with the benefit of hindsight.
Ask around. If it’s an internal position, use your trusted network to gather some more insight into what this potential boss is like.
What are their priorities. Good insight for when you do join but can also give you clues as to the pressure they are under. Even a good boss under pressure can be a nightmare to work for.

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Q: How can I get off to a good start with a new boss?

A: Just relax and keep the establishment of a great working relationship with your new boss as a priority, for you, and for them. Be clear about what you want in the relationship, what good looks like, and then it is much easier to shoot for it.

They will of course be busy beyond belief, and you need to tread carefully in the early days but see if you can have a frank discussion right at the start about how you are both going to work together, and how you are going to keep it on track. Also, make sure to invest time in understanding at a deep level, what they have on their plate, and what you can do to make a positive contribution to their problems/challenges/priorities.

Here’s two highly relevant articles:

Extra Resources

Here are some more resources relevant to developing the relationship (good, bad or downright ugly) with your boss (and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel on YouTube while you are there).