Your relationship with your boss is important. In most cases, your boss has influence on your career progression, job satisfaction, and even your pay. Pleasing your boss is a good thing to do, and here are 8 things you can do today to do that (without appearing to be a total kiss-ass.)
- Finish something off. We all have things that our boss has asked us to do, that we just haven’t gotten around to completing. Why not dust it off and close the file on it today?
- Pay a compliment. Unless you’re really unlucky, bosses are humans, just like us. They have fears, hopes, phobias, hatreds, passions and insecurities, just like the best of us. Being told that we’re doing a good job is always welcome, right? So I’ve found it travels a long way to pay your boss a compliment for something well done. Make it a genuine compliment about something relevant to your work (and at the right time), and you’re onto a winner.
- Compliment your boss to their peers. As above, but this time compliment the performance of your boss to his or her peer group. Again, make the compliment genuine, relevant and appropriately timed.
- Suggest a new idea for your boss and your team. Our managers like forward, creative thinkers. Suggest an idea on how to improve the performance of your team, or save time, or costs. And be prepared to be asked ‘OK, so how do we make it happen, and when can you start?’
- Tidy up your desk. Sounds simple, but it works! When our workspace looks sloppy, we create the wrong impression with everybody who passes it. One thing that gets right up our bosses nose is when demonstrate a careless attitude towards our colleagues.
- Make visible progress on your objectives. Spend a bit longer on your objectives set during your last appraisal. In most workplaces, your bosses objectives are dependent on the delivery of yours. Completing your goals will mean success for you and your manager, too. I have created an excellent course if you want to truly ace your objectives.
- Assist/support a colleague. Bosses really do love it when we play as a team. If you know if a colleague is struggling with a tough task, or if they need help working something out, then offer some help. Give a bit of your time and effort. Not only will your boss like it, but you’ll build a stronger relationship with your colleagues too.
- Ask for help. Face it, sometimes we find ourselves we’re struggling with something that we know should be a slam-dunk. If we can’t find help from colleagues, we keep going without escalating it to our boss… until we’re either late with the activity or it doesn’t get done at all. You know, it takes courage to lift up your hand to your boss and ask for help. And every time I’ve done this myself, it has ended up in some form of assistance being offered without any bad feeling or consequences. In fact, it shows to our boss that we know when to escalate problems and we use sound judgment.
Learn some more great tactics for success in your workplace by reading my eBook The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Professionals. Get instant access to this popular guide by joining my mailing list today.
