Welcome to the “Managing your Boss” series, where we’ll be exploring strategies to improve your relationship with your leadership team. With a total of nine insightful videos, this series aims to equip you with practical tips for navigating common workplace challenges.
In this first video, we’ll delve into how to manage a boss who doesn’t seem to like you. The video is approximately 3 minutes long, and we’ve included additional tips and strategies below, so sit back, relax, and let’s dive in!
In the hustle and bustle of the workplace, the relationship between you and your boss plays a crucial role in your overall job satisfaction and success. But what do you do when you get the sense that your boss isn’t your biggest fan? Don’t worry; you’re not alone in this dilemma.
Understanding the Situation
Feeling like your boss doesn’t like you can be a tough pill to swallow. But before jumping to conclusions, it’s important to understand that your boss’s experience of your relationship is quite different from yours. We depend on our jobs for financial security and our leadership team has the final say in whether we get to keep those jobs. No matter how flat the hierarchy is in your workplace, or how open the communication, it’s natural for employees to be hyper-attuned to any signs that things might not be going well, and that includes any nuance in the boss’s words, tone, or mood that may indicate something is not quite right. Being hyper-attuned to your boss is an important survival skill, but it also skews your perception toward magnifying the negative. If your boss is feeling sick or tired from a family issue and you notice that negative energy, your mind will naturally assume it’s related to you.
Even if the negativity is consistent over time and permeates most of your interactions with your boss, it still might not be personal. You could have a different social style than your boss that causes you to naturally miscommunicate. Or your boss could be frustrated with something related to your work and be having a tough time communicating expectations.
Prioritizing Performance
When you pick up negative vibes from your boss, it’s natural to focus on the relationship. But the real issue at stake is whether there is an issue with your performance. This is the time to clarify expectations and make sure you understand your priorities, deadlines, and performance expectations the same way your boss does. Try to get specific feedback from your boss on what they are looking for, but don’t stop there. If you have peers or others you trust in the organization or in similar roles outside the organization, see if you can get perspective there as well. It is possible your boss is not communicating clearly and the negativity you are experiencing comes from their frustration. The bottom line is that if you are clearly performing well, your job is much safer than if you aren’t, so that is the priority.
Improving your Relationship
If you are clearly performing well, yet you still aren’t experiencing a positive connection with your boss, here are a couple of additional things to consider:
1. Social Style Differences: If you’ve ever taken a DiSC or other Social Styles assessment, you may remember that people falling in “opposite” quadrants on these assessments naturally struggle to relate. People in the “driving” or “D” category are efficient and results oriented and they easily get impatient with small talk. People in the “amiable” or “S” category like to develop deep relationships and have a lot of patience, so they are often offended by abruptness. People in the “expressive” or “I” category, have tons of energy and love joking, laughing, and having fun with others at work, while those in the “analytical” or “C” category get annoyed and overwhelmed by all that energy and need solitary time to think and focus. Learning your social style and the social style of your boss can help you adjust your interactions in a way that lines up with how they prefer to communicate. We have several blogs that dive more deeply into social styles if you are interested. Here is one such blog.
2. Expectations: It’s natural to hope and expect that your boss will be a good mentor, or at least someone you can relate to, and to feel disappointed when this isn’t the case. Unfortunately, most people in leadership roles have a lot of growing to do, so while they may live up to some of your expectations, they’ll inevitably fall short. Try to find a few things you respect about your boss that you can learn from, and trust that you can find mentors in your field, even if they aren’t in the position directly above you. Obviously it’s better to have a boss you love working with than one you are tolerating and managing to the best of your ability, but if you can find an opportunity to learn anything from this relationship, even how to deal with difficult people, then your time won’t be wasted. Meanwhile, if it doesn’t look like the relationship will improve, it’s perfectly reasonable to look around for alternative positions.
Remember, managing your boss is a skill that takes time and practice to master. Stay tuned for more insightful tips and advice in our “Managing your Boss” series. And don’t forget to check out our free “Managing your Boss” Tip Booklet for additional strategies to navigate these challenging situations.
