The Shift You Need to Connect Better with Your Boss
Last week, I felt so nervous I wanted to crawl into a hole and live the rest of my days as a mole person.
Granted, I feel like this every week - multiple times - whenever I go to swim practice. It's been about a year now. The feeling won't go away. Here's why:
Not only do I anticipate the pain of the workout, I’m also deathly afraid of having to perform what, on the outside seems like a simple task: leading the lane.
Because it's not just leading the lane. There’s a metaphor here.
When you lead the lane you must:
Count & track the laps your group is swimming
Keep the right time intervals between repetitions (aka do math on top of not hyperventilating)
Work 33% harder to break the wake for everyone that follows - this one blows my mind every time
Concentrate the whole drill - when you space out, people nip at your heels, you mess up the count, the rest of your lane gets PISSED
Save your bitching for your weekly newsletter - no one needs a leader with a bad attitude
When the drill gets announced - kicking with fins, pulling without the use of your legs, sprints - every member of every lane does a quick assessment of their talent at that particular skill, energy level, & willingness to take on all of the above.
Calculations done, if no one volunteers, the leadership seat gets passed around like a hot potato - “I can’t today, I’m sick,” “I’m jet lagged,” “I"m buying a car today” - until someone gets suckered into the role or time runs out, whichever comes first.
When it's not me, I am deeply grateful to whoever made the choice to step in to that role. I know the grace & energy it takes to be successful in that position - to truly lead and it gives me such appreciation for anyone heading up anything with even 80% success. I never fail to thank them.
WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH GETTING AHEAD
I made a new friend last week, an exec coach at a Big Important Tech Firm and she had a really interesting perspective:
“I work with extremely smart people who want to move up fast. But the ones that do - the thing that makes the difference is deeply empathizing with their boss, with the leadership.”
From a communications stand point, it's crucial to connecting with decision makers.
Yes, your boss may not be the leader you want him or her to be. Maybe they’re too busy, too distracted to notice your contribution. Maybe it's annoying that you have to spend even one more minute catering to that person when they seem to have no regard for you. Okay - that's toxic. I don't suggest you lose sleep over sociopaths.
For the other run of the mill situations when your advancement relies on the buy in of someone with more decision making power than you:
When was the last time you Freaky Friday'd with the decision makers in your life to see their side?
APPLYING THIS METHOD
When my client & I are figuring out how to best position their ask, I do an exercise where they state their side then literally step around to face themselves, this time as the decision maker. Here, they see their situation from the other side.
What comes up is often the same:
”He has a lot of demands on his time.”
”She's under pressure from her own bosses.”
”He respects my work but maybe I came on too strong & overwhelmed him...”
When we empathize with leadership, we appreciate their constraints, understand better what they need and thus how we can step in to fill the void. In this way, we build rapport, add value, & become the answer to their unmet needs. That's how you cultivate an ally & get their buy in to move up.
NEED A HAND WITH THAT? I GOT YOUR FREE GUIDE ON POSITIONING YOUR ASK