How to Get In Sync with Your Boss’ Work Style
Do you click with your boss like Pam clicks with Michael? In my favorite jobs, I clicked with my boss by adjusting my work style to their work habits and idiosyncrasies. How do you get in sync with your boss’ work style? By adapting to your boss’s work habits, idiosyncrasies, and management style.
If your manager is very detailed oriented and you are not, then you might feel as if your manager is micro-managing you. What you might not be aware of is the fact your boss may manage you, other direct reports, projects, and the department with a detail-oriented approach. Rather than getting defensive, it’s more productive to adjust to your boss style. For your meetings, have your details prepared and anticipate any of your boss’s needs. In fact, anticipate as much as you can. Bosses love it when you meet a need that they didn’t know they had.
Your Boss’ Idiosyncrasies
Does your boss also have idiosyncrasies? It could be as simple as having patience with your manager as he or she summarizes a meeting or discussion with you, by listing the items discussed or resulting action items. While this could easily turn into a pet peeve for you, see it for what it really is. All your boss may be doing is repeating out loud, so they can commit the information to memory or to your memory. Either way, I recommend perceiving idiosyncrasies as key tips and trick that your boss uses for their own sake and for yours. A key to personal success at work is adjusting to the little things as well.
Proving Your Value
There is an an upside to adapting. You may genuinely click with your boss after adapting; it gives you the optimal environment with your boss, giving you the ability to demonstrate your value to him or her. As a result, your boss may take you with him or her, as they ascend the ladder. Or better yet, your career may ascend, as a result of your boss. Sometimes it’s all about compatibility in personalities, but more importantly, work styles that are in sync.
Start Clicking
At the end of the day, it’s up to us as workers to adjust to our boss’s style by meeting their information, communication, and productivity requirements. The sooner we do this, the easier our work relationships become. Clicking with your boss’s work style should be the goal, rather than creating and maintain friction by trying to keep your ideas of individuality or personal work style. After all, you did sign up to work for your boss just like Pam adjusts to Michael, making him a better manager. It worked for Pam; she’s moving up the ladder, with Michael’s utmost confidence in her, while also creating a bond between between them.
