Master the Art of Upstream Management: Leading Your Boss and Accelerate Your Success

Every professional seeks to advance their career – whether it’s aspiring for a superior role, a pay raise, or more recognition. When you’re not self-employed, your boss becomes a crucial figure in your professional journey. Consequently, mastering the art of managing your boss and communicating effectively with them can bring significant benefits.

There are two crucial dimensions to optimizing your relationship with your boss:

First, synchronize with your boss.

Second, lead your boss.

1. Synchronizing with Your Boss

The organization’s success and your personal growth are heavily dependent on how effectively you can synchronize with your manager.

Three strategies can enhance your synchronization with your boss’s work style:

Invest in Strengthening Relationships

A harmonious relationship with your boss not only boosts job satisfaction, growth opportunities, and financial rewards, but also contributes to your overall happiness and peace of mind. On the other hand, a strained relationship can hinder your career progress and lead to frustration and stress, affecting your life outside work as well. Therefore, developing a robust and cordial relationship with your boss is a vital skill. Leveraging coaching opportunities to learn self-leadership and tools like DISC can significantly enhance your ability to work with your boss effectively.

Empathize with Your Boss

In order to forge a healthy relationship with your boss, try to understand their perspective. Recognize their challenges, expectations, and the work environment they operate in.

Decipher Your Boss’s Value System

A boss’s value system shapes their management and leadership styles. As an employee, recognizing your boss’s value system can contribute significantly to building a successful relationship. Observe how their choices at work are guided by their values.

Establish a Personal Connection with Bosses from Different Cultures

Building a strong relationship with a boss from a different cultural background can be challenging yet rewarding. Observe how they lead the team and identify instances where cultural orientations come into play. A personal connection can help you understand the cultural influences on your boss’s decision-making.

2. Leading Your Boss

Many organizations train their employees on working effectively with their bosses through various skills like behavior profiling, self-leadership, and conflict resolution. However, the concept of managing your boss, or “upstream management,” is not widely emphasized. Here are two strategies to lead your boss effectively:

Treat Your Boss as a Stakeholder

Managing your boss is akin to stakeholder management in any project. Once you start treating your boss as a project participant rather than the one controlling your paycheck, you can employ similar techniques used for stakeholder management such as stakeholder analysis, expectation setting, and communication.

Prioritize Quality in Upstream Communication

Understanding what your boss wants from you is crucial. They expect you to keep them updated, demonstrate control over your tasks, and alert them about any issues. Effective upstream communication should be timely, precise, concise, and high level.

In conclusion, remember that your boss is human too. Approaching your relationship with empathy and emotional intelligence will foster positive experiences at your workplace. Working effectively with your boss and leading your boss is more about perspective than about skills or techniques. Management is a blend of viewpoints, philosophy, and belief systems.

This article first appeared in Brainz Magazine on Aug 20, 2021, available at this link: https://www.brainzmagazine.com/post/be-successful-with-your-manager