Every now and then I get a call from a client about their boss, asking for advice on how to deal with them. As a career and life coach, I wish I could say that these calls are far and few in between, but they are not; they come with a regular frequency from clients at all levels. These bosses range in their positions from first-level managers all the way up to a CEO.
What is a typical complaint? Typically, a new boss from the outside arrives on the scene or someone internally is promoted to take on that role that blindsides almost everyone reporting to them. Within just a few weeks after taking charge their leadership demands begin to disrupt my clientsand everyone reporting to them in most caseslife. Instead of providing positive and inspiring leadership they crack their whip and start making unreasonable demands from everyone reporting to themessentially slave-driving everyone on their team. Despite their team members already exceptional performances they further ratchet up their demands and use all kinds of minatory tactics to keep them on edge, often making them wonder if they are on their bosss list to be replaced with someone else.
In a recent such encounter one of my executive-level clients called me, distraught, after working for her new boss for nearly a year. From the get-go my client was told that she needed to more than double her partnership revenues and help the partneran SI for large enterprise clientstriple its revenues from their companys activities during the coming year.
With fierce competition in the enterprise software space this was a daunting challenge, but my client took that on and within just a few quarters, after taking on the challenge, established a run-rate on both fronts that exceeded the projected goals. In fact my client exceeded her company goal by 25% and the partner goal by more than 35% at the end of the year. This was accomplished by the sheer dint of her will, hard work, and by finding strategic ways to increase the flow of traffic between her company and the partner, despite increasing competition and fierce price wars among players.
Of course, all of this entailed much hard work on the part of my client, yet despite that workload and her laudable success the new boss kept piling on additional responsibilities on my client without providing any support, encouragement, or leadership to help her achieve her additional objectives. At this point she was already spending nearly 80 hours every week, traveling, meeting with partners and customers, and finding ways to elevate the companys brand and footprint.
As if this were not enough he also kept on giving her ad hoc tasks with short deadlines, where she had to stop doing what was already on her plan from his previous demands, shifting her efforts on getting such tasks done on time. In many cases, after my client put in extra effort getting these assignments done on time, her boss would often say, Oh, let us forget that task now, I dont think we need to send that out anymore, let us focus on something else, instead!
While all of this was happening there was not a single word of encouragement, appreciation, or even acknowledgement from the tyrant. Midway through the year when my client sat down for a periodic review her boss demanded why the run-rate was only doubled and what it would take to beat even that feat!
At this point my client felt burnt out and wanted to know how to deal with her situation. Although each situation is unique, this is my general guidance in such situations:
1.Upon the arrival of your new boss let them settle down first and then brief them about your responsibilities, goals you signed up for that year, and how youd work to get those delivered.
2.Ask for them to explain to you how they plan to team-up with you and what areas you can count on them to get support to help you manage your work.
3.When they make new demands on what they expect to be delivered with new timelines provide them a plan of action with parameters such as resources, support, and processes to achieve those goals. Ask for their advice on how you can improve on this plan to exceed their goals. In this conversation make sure that how your performance is being measured is clear to you both. Ask them how they plan to provide you leadership guidance to make youand themsuccessful.
4.When you recognize that your boss is a slave-driver (see what happened to my client above) do not surrender to working even harder to please them. Once you get on this path the demands never end and you may end up spending every waking hour working on tasks your boss barks out just to keep up with your workload. Even with that approach youll realize that youre still coming up short, with an ever-growing list of unfinished tasks.
5.Have a face-to-face discussion with your boss about your workload, your accomplishments, and what you require continuing on this path to their never-ending demands. If the boss is not sympathetic to your plight and does not acknowledge your success it is time to change your engagement and your ongoing commitment to your job. This is a significant step you must take without hesitation.
6.Your next significant step is to emotionally detach yourself from your boss and your job and to treat your job as a transactional commitment you make to get through the day and the week. This is one of the hardest shifts of mind one must do to stop yourself from being emotionally consumed by how your boss is treating you.
7.Once you are able to free up yourself from the emotional commitment you feel for your job then you are there to just do what is in front of you and deliver what is expected of you transactionally. You are no longer consumed by your concerns about how your boss is treating you or that you are not being appreciated.
8.Prepare a dynamite rsum based on your stellar accomplishments under your new boss and update your LinkedIn Profile to start marketing yourself.
9.Leverage your network and start reaching out to your contacts within your ecosystem to find where the action is and start interviewing without further delay. Your successes during the most recent efforts would have helped you garner some attention from your competitors and others within your ecosystem. Do not hesitate to leverage that success.
10.When you find a new job walk into your bosss office and surprise them with your resignation. Walk out and start your new job afresh!
Sometimes surrendering to the reality of slave-drivers and accepting that you need to change your job is the best antidote to deal with situations where you cannot work hard or long enough during a day to deliver what your boss expects from you. Fighting or reasoning with such bosses is a futile cause. The best approach is to emotionally disengage, do the work that you are committed to, and get out at the first chance you create for yourself!
Good luck!
| About Author | |
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Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader. |
Website: http://dilipsaraf.com/?p=2856
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