Managing Your Manager: How to Get Ahead with Any Type of Boss (BUSINESS SKILLS AND DEVELOPMENT) - Softcover

DUFOUR, Gonzague

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0071751939 ISBN 13: 9780071751933

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2010

Synopsis

Learn Everything You Can From Every Type of Boss

Managers come in all varieties, and unfortunately you don't get to choose your preference. Too often, we find ourselves working for people who are tough to work for, difficult to "decode," or brilliant but inaccessible. Managing Your Manager is the answer to dealing with a problematic supervisor.

Placing manager "types" into real-world categories--from the Bully, Scientist, and Star to the Geek, Parent, and Con Artist--it provides everything you need to make your work life more satisfying and productive. Managing Your Manager gives you the tools to:

• Categorize your boss based on telling traits
• Create a solid working relationship
• Avoid common pitfalls associated with certain types
• Become a strong leader based on lessons learned from various bosses

Managers of all types can provide invaluable learning experiences that can enhance your career. Managing Your Manager empowers you with the knowledge, skills, and savvy for dealing with any type of boss and excelling in your job.

About this title

About the Author

Gonzague Dufour is a human resources executive who has held senior positions with top companies such as Phillip Morris, Kraft, Jacobs Suchard, and other large consulting firms.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

MANAGING YOUR MANAGER

How to Get Ahead with Any Type of Boss

By Gonzague Dufour

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-175193-3

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 THE BULLY Limit the Pain, Target the Gain
CHAPTER 2 THE GOOD Coping with the Boredom
CHAPTER 3 THE KALEIDOSCOPE Display Your Own Power Selectively and 
Strategically
CHAPTER 4 THE STAR Enjoy the Ride
CHAPTER 5 THE SCIENTIST Enjoy the Intellectual Challenges
CHAPTER 6 THE NAVEL Challenge Your Own Values
CHAPTER 7 SITUATIONAL MANAGEMENT Tailoring Your Boss Management to Events, 
Moods, and Other Matters
CHAPTER 8 MANAGING OTHER TYPES OF BOSSES
CHAPTER 9 THE SEVENTH LEADER
INDEX

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

THE BULLYLimit the Pain, Target the Gain

My Bully looked like his moniker, in that he was a big guy. The Bully, however,doesn't have to be physically large to be intimidating. I've known Bullies whoare small in stature yet have a swagger and sneer about them that inspire fear.There are women Bullies as well as men. And the Bully may be a first-timemanager or the CEO.

In short, this type comes in all shapes and sizes.

The word bully connotes a number of negative traits, but like all bossarchetypes that I'll discuss, this one is a mixture of positives and negatives.In fact, the positives are often the flip side of the negatives—you don'tget one without the other.

Let's look at my particular Bully, and then we'll examine the best way ofmanaging this heavy-handed heavy hitter.

THE BULLY IN ACTION

As some researchers demonstrate, the three critical factors for the making of aCEO are self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-control. My Bully lacked thislast one, a common failing among Bully bosses. These managers have unexpectedbursts of anger, and their volatility contributes to their intimidatingpresence. It's one thing when a boss becomes angry over a costly mistake, butit's something else entirely when his rage seems to come out of nowhere.

My Bully hated surprises. He was most likely to fly off the handle and castigatepeople when he was unprepared for what he saw or heard. For instance, Joshua,the Bully's direct report, once made a presentation to the Bully's boss at whichour entire group was present. Joshua did an excellent job, but during thepresentation he revealed that we had made a second trip to a key customer tocorrect a complaint. It was a relatively innocuous admission, but the Bullydidn't think so. After the meeting, behind closed doors, the Bully's screamsechoed down the hallway, and Joshua slunk out of his office like a whipped dog.In fact, Joshua was so shaken by the encounter that he tried to avoid the Bullywhenever possible, and his effectiveness diminished considerably; he left thecompany within the year.

The Bully was intensely competitive, so when another group within the companydelivered better results than our group, or an outside competitor did well, heerupted. Sometimes his eruptions had a touch of paranoia to them. He wasconvinced that there were leaks—that someone in our group had revealedsomething to another group that gave them an edge. Or he believed that we hadbeen careless with our electronic correspondence, allowing competitors toobserve what projects we were working on and take advantage of this knowledge.Rather than accepting that there were other good teams and companies out there,the Bully would browbeat us as a group as well as individually for our failings.Like most Bullies, he was skilled at knowing where an employee's most vulnerablespot was and hitting it with a barbed comment. Judy, who had been fired early onin her career for taking a risk that resulted in her company losing asignificant amount of money, tended to play it safe with her decisions. TheBully, fully aware of her past problems, would needle her unmercifully: "Judy,is this really what you want to do, or what your fear of failure is telling youto do?"

At times, the Bully micromanaged when he should have supervised and delegated.Even worse, he let you know that he was taking over your task because youweren't smart enough, fast enough, or savvy enough to complete it effectively.He thought nothing of taking back an assignment he had given you and doing ithimself. While he often was very good at executing these tasks, hismicromanaging not only was demeaning, but it prevented learning and growth; italso made people wary of taking on stretch assignments where there was a goodchance of making mistakes.

The Bully, though, possessed the strengths of his type as well as theweaknesses. He was highly aggressive, competitive, and driven, and this oftenresulted in our group meeting or exceeding our objectives. He was notintimidated by anyone, and he was willing to stand in front of the company's topexecutives and defend our group with convincing ardor. New or unfamiliarsituations were not a problem for him as they are for some executives. At onepoint, our group faced a crisis about which the Bully knew very little, yet hetook it on with great confidence and handled it with great effectiveness.Confidence to the point of arrogance has its benefits.

Despite his temper and intimidating demeanor, many good people wanted to workfor the Bully. This was due, in large part, to the Bully's reputation forsecuring top bonuses and rewarding his favorites—if you were on his goodside, he made organizational life easy for you. He also created excitement andenergy around his teams, much as motivational sports coaches do. He pushed hard,posed challenges, created pragmatic strategies, and rewarded performance.

The people who got along best with the Bully tended to be either jaded or highlyambitious. Members of the latter group felt that he could help advance theircareers—if the Bully could get them the compensation and promotions theywanted, he could yell as much as he wanted. The jaded group felt that the Bullywas savvy about office politics and would use the force of his personality toprotect those he liked; they figured he offered them more protection in toughtimes than managers who were nice but ineffectual.

The people who had problems with him harbored more idealistic notions of whatbusiness could and should be. Up until the time I began working for the Bully, Ihad subscribed to certain beliefs about being a manager in an organization.Perhaps naively, I had always assumed managers joined and stayed with anorganization because they believed in what the company stood for. They possesseda purpose that transcended their personal mission. They were loyal to thecompany, their bosses, and their teams. Though they certainly had individualgoals—in terms of salary, bonuses, titles, and so on—they were alsomotivated by factors larger than these personal objectives. While my previousbosses had flaws, most were driven by a group vision—they wanted theirteams, their departments, their divisions, and their organizations to do well.

The Bully wanted himself to do well, and if others also did well, that was finebut of secondary concern. Such selfish behavior was difficult to deal with. Atbest, it was disillusioning. At worst, it bred cynicism and similarly selfishbehaviors. The Bully demonstrated his me-first attitude in many ways, but themost egregious usually had to do with his compensation. On at least oneoccasion, he manipulated the numbers to ensure that he would receive the highestbonus allowed, justifying his behaviors by saying that he "deserved it."Similarly, he made it clear to his team that they were receiving their bonusesbecause of his heroic efforts and not because they deserved them. He tried tobully them into believing that but for the grace of him, there would be no goodbonuses.

To call him Machiavellian would be an oversimplification, but he certainly wasmanipulative. On his best days, he manipulated in ways that helped our groupachieve highly ambitious objectives and contributed to the company's overallsuccess. On his worst days, he manipulated out of spite, anger, or just becauseit was in his nature.

TELLING TRAITS

Many managers can lose their tempers and be intimidating at times, but they arenot necessarily Bullies. What distinguishes the Bully from other types is thathe is consistently intimidating, pushing other people around, losing control,driving toward results, displaying incredible confidence, and being selfish. Usethe following questions to determine if your manager's modus operandi is that ofa Bully:

• Does she try to get you to carry out assignments or meet goals through fearand intimidation?

• Is your manager constantly berating you in order to make herself look good bycomparison?

• Does she consistently deliver good results, in large part through heraggressiveness, drive, and toughness?

• Does she tend to attract ambitious cynics, while value-driven people andsensitive souls struggle to work for her?

• Is she willing to be tough with her own bosses as well as her direct reports?

• Are her ultimate motives selfish? (i.e., Is she much more concerned with herown performance than with how well the team, department, or division does?)

• Do her self-confidence and bluster allow her to handle crises and unfamiliarsituations better than most managers?

Perhaps an even more telling identification factor involves the paradoxicalpersona the Bully creates. Contrary to the images usually conjured by this term,the Bully isn't a one-dimensional tyrant (though tyranny is definitely part ofhis repertoire). Instead, the Bully tends to generate fear, respect, andfascination in equal measures. The fear can derive from many sources, fromobvious belligerence to more subtle demonstrations of power. My Bully, forinstance, used a combination of straight talk (telling you what he thought, evenif it was hurtful) and a commanding presence to intimidate; even when he wasn'tyelling or threatening, he inspired a certain amount of fear.

Respect came from his willingness to say what he thought, even when he wastalking to his own bosses. The Bully often gets what he wants, and his abilityto get what his people need in the bargain creates at least grudging respect.Just as we admire coaches like Bob Knight who display appalling behaviors butget results, we admire bosses who produce consistently.

Fascination is a result of the Bully being a complex character. When I joinedthe Bully's group, the first thing he asked me was nothing that any boss hadever asked me before. He wasn't curious about what I hoped to learn or how Imight contribute to the group. Instead, the first question out of his mouth was,"Did they give you more money ["they" being these Guys in the Headquarters]?"The Bully frequently says and does things no one else would say or do. The Bullyis always the object of his people's speculations: Why is he so driven? Why doeshe feel compelled to insult everyone? What makes him so angry?

Therefore, if you're trying to determine if your boss is a Bully, think aboutwhether he evokes fear, respect, and fascination much more so than other bosses.This trio of responses is a good sign that you're working for a Bully.

Finally, make the distinction between a permanent and a temporary Bully. Somebosses like to test people when they first join the group or when the Bullyfirst becomes their manager. Their method is to subject a given individual tointense questioning and criticism, to give them stretch assignments to see howthey handle it. They may not even do it consciously—they are anxious andwant to communicate to their people that they are not pushovers—but thenet effect is off-putting. These bosses, however, are involved in temporarytesting. After a few weeks or a month or two at most, they ease up. They may actlike the typical Bully boss, but they're only acting. They will revert to theirnatural type after this break-in period.

A real Bully, on the other hand, continues to be intimidating and bitinglycritical indefinitely.

INTERPERSONAL TACTICS: HOW TO DEAL WITH THE ANGER, INTIMIDATION, AND OTHERTRAITS

The Bully can be a challenging manager to manage, especially if you're not usedto dealing with this type. If you've never worked for a Bully before, it mayseem as if she has a personal vendetta against you or as if there's nothing youcan do to please her. You may find yourself reacting defensively to her derisivecritiques of your work, which only makes a bad situation worse.

Before suggesting what you can do to handle the negative emotional reactionsthat come with working for a Bully, consider how two other people dealt withthis situation.

Vince was the creative director of a large ad agency, and he had enjoyed astellar career, winning awards for commercials he and his teams had helpedcreate and demonstrating great skill as a presenter to agency clients andprospects. Vince had two relatively young and inexperienced copywriters in hisgroup—Dennis and Sheila. As was his habit, he picked on them mercilessly.When they presented concepts to him, he often shot them down with thick sarcasm.Once, he told Dennis that the idea for a print ad he came up was worthy of afive-year-old. After Sheila had worked for over a week on a radio commercial forone of the agency's largest clients, he told her that if they presented it, theclient would fire them and be justified in doing so. Vince often used a linewith them that he had used many times before with young copywriters and artdirectors: "Maybe you should consider a career in accounting, since that fieldrequires little creativity."

Dennis was devastated by Vince's bullying tactics. On his ride home from work,he would think about all the mean things Vince had said to him, running themthrough his mind over and over, trying to determine if he was as untalented asVince implied he was. He talked to his girlfriend incessantly about Vince, andshe quickly grew tired of his obsession with his boss; she eventually forbadeDennis from even mentioning Vince's name. At work, Dennis became so anxiousabout Vince's reactions that his work pace slowed—he tried to think ofevery objection Vince might have to his ads, and he thought of so many that hehad trouble finalizing anything. He reached a point where he hated coming towork and made a conscious effort to avoid personal contact with Vince, using e-mailand phone to communicate with him whenever possible. Finally, he quit hisjob, deciding that he could no longer tolerate working for a Bully.

Sheila, on the other hand, wasn't particularly bothered by Vince after sheadjusted to his style. At first, she had reacted in a similar way to Dennis; shehad never had a boss treat her so rudely. After a while, though, she realizedthat despite being a jerk, he was a very smart, accomplished jerk who couldteach her a lot about advertising and help her career. She learned that the bestway to deal with Vince's bullying manner was to adopt the stance of a novice(even though she had been in the business for three years) and try to find thelearning buried in Vince's invective. When he told her once that an ad she andher art director had produced was likely to send potential customers running toa competitor's brand, she asked him why he thought that was likely. He answeredher, and though his answer was typically sarcastic, it contained wisdom that shewas able to use.

Similarly, Sheila recognized that she needed to develop a thick skin if she wereto continue to work for and learn from Vince. This was easier said than done,but it helped Sheila to talk to others who had been in Vince's group for a fewyears and assured her that though he was never a particularly nice boss, he wasgreat at presenting his people's work and selling it to clients, all whichadvanced their careers. Sheila was motivated to develop a thick skin, and, aftera few months, she was able to handle the way he browbeat her when he felt hereffort was sub-par. Sheila said it was almost a "Zen-like" approach, how shefiltered out the meanness in his tone and words and focused exclusively on hisinsight into what did and did not make a good ad.

Within two years, Sheila was promoted to group copy supervisor, and a year latershe became an associate creative director. Even then, Vince continued to berateher (though not as frequently or as nastily), but she also knew that he valuedher and told herself that "it was just his way."

The moral of this story isn't that Sheila's approach is always the rightapproach. Some people find Bullies impossible to work for, and quitting may be abetter option than to go to work each day and develop an ulcer. You have to knowyourself and recognize which boss type is particularly difficult for you to dealwith, given your psychological makeup (more about that at the end of thechapter).

Still, the following advice is valid for most people and will help them managethe Bully by managing their own personal responses to this type.

Don't Take It Personally

This is the equivalent of Sheila's tactic of developing a thick skin. Try to seethings from the Bully's point of view. It may be that he sees his overlycritical approach as the best way to help people learn and avoid career-killingmistakes. It's possible that he's so focused on helping his group meet highlyambitious objectives—objectives he is driven to meet—that he isintolerant of any misstep that hampers achieving these goals. In other words, ifyou can see the "logic" behind the Bully's yelling and hostility, then you maybe able to take the personal edge off of it.

Once, when we had a large company meeting in which my Bully was answeringgeneral questions for employees, he introduced our team in a relatively pleasantmanner. The only problem was that he forgot to introduce one member of theteam—the HR person, who happened to be me. After the meeting, I heardanother executive mention to the Bully that he had neglected to introduce me.The Bully said, "Yes, you're right, I forgot to mention the HR guy, a necessaryevil."

When you hear something like this, your impulse is to cry or scream. Instead,what you do is tell yourself that you're not going to let him get to you andthat his style is to pick on everyone, not just you.

Find the Humor

Admittedly, there's nothing funny about getting pushed around and yelled at byyour boss. In fact, it's humiliating. Yet if you think about it, there'ssomething absurd about a grown man who feels he has to act like the toughest kidin the schoolyard. Bullies are made to be mocked. They are ridiculous actors,puffing themselves up and pushing others around just because they are in aposition to do so. Laughing at them privately can take the edge off the hurt youfeel. It can turn the tables on the Bully's strategy; in your mind, he's theobject of your derision.

(Continues...)

(Continues...)

Excerpted from MANAGING YOUR MANAGER by Gonzague Dufour. Copyright © 2011 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071751939
• ISBN 13: 9780071751933
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256