Lesson

Thriving in your career depends on gaining your boss's support. Management is a two-way street, and effective managers need to maintain and develop good relationships. One also need to be able to exert your influence upwards.

To manage or influence your boss, you have to thoroughly understand him.

1. Define his working style

• Put yourself in your boss's shoes and try to get under his skin. Confirm what he wants as this will eliminate common misunderstandings and enable you to successfully meet and surpass his requirements and expectation.

• One of the most important things for successfully managing upwards is understanding the context your boss works in, that is the priorities, pressures, strategic drivers, key measures/performance indicators that define his success and failure.

• Understanding these factors allows you to identify the kind of information and action that best supports your boss.

• You can learn a lot about the environment your boss operates in by watching him interacting with others, especially his peers and superiors.

2. Understand yourself

• Effective upward management requires a good understanding of the strengths that you bring to the table, and how they complement your boss' strengths and weaknesses.

• Knowing your abilities allows you to identify and contribute to the issues and challenges facing your boss.

• Contemplate your personal style of management and gauge whether you have obstructive personality traits.

• Conversely, you may have attributes that will smooth the path of the relationship, so identify them and utilise them fully.

3. Build your relationship

• This involves being fully conversant with and sensitive to your boss's timetable.

• Determined whether your boss is a reader or a listener. Reader prefer information presented to them in report form, so they can study it methodically, while listeners would rather have the information presented orally.

• Create an environment of mutual respect, so that if you know your boss dislikes certain aspects of his job, you can offer to take on or share those duties.
  

4. Essential Skills

• Being able to communicate with him in a considerate, sensitive manner.

• Able to empathise - individual with high levels of emotional intelligence tend to be skillful at managing upwards and are good problem-solvers.

• Be a strategic and visionary thinker - to trust your judgment on important matters and run with your ideas.

• Avoid career-limiting moves likes lying to your boss or withholding important information from him.

Read this from an article, thus, wana jot it down for references.