Help your boss succeed

Sounds counter-intuitive but supporting your boss helps them in their work and benefits you too. When you support your boss, you are demonstrating proper work behaviour. Who knows, you may even learn enough from helping your boss to raise your game and attract more opportunities for yourself. Here are some ways to start.

Execute on your boss’s priorities too: Show interest and willingness to pick up the baton on important projects and run with it. Whenever your boss asks you to help with something new, don’t hesitate to do whatever little you can but make sure you deliver.

Lean more towards yes: Be strategic about additional responsibilities you take and ensure that you take some of the load off your boss. Develop a relationship with your boss that enables you to appreciate what keeps them up at night and provide any insights you might have to help them manage those issues. It can be as simple as attending a meeting on their behalf, facilitating a meeting for them or simply not bothering them with your ‘problems’ when they have other more urgent priorities.

Focus on what your boss is measured on: Don’t work on the basis of what you assume, but rather the assessment criteria that they confirm to you. When giving feedback on them to others, highlight things they do well which are currently not considered success criteria for their role but which are worth paying attention to because of the impact it makes.

Tell your manager what you need and why: Save your boss time and guesswork by telling them clearly and specifically what you need and why. That way you make it easier for them to help you and also improve their effectiveness as your manager.

Now take action: Identify one way to support your boss.