CHAPTER 8

The Art—and Responsibility—of Helping Your Boss Succeed

As a junior partner, there are many payoffs to helping your boss succeed:

• It increases the chance of the unit/organization being successful (because there are at least two of you on the task).
• You grow your competencies as you take on more challenging work.
• It means that your boss is more likely to move on to newer and better things, opening up the possibility for you to do the same.
• You build a “line of credit” that you can use to allow you to have the opportunities and autonomy to be successful.
• You develop a reputation for being committed to more than personal advancement—which has a positive effect outside your area.

Helping your boss implies that you have influence—and direct reports usually have more influence than they first think, because they command more currencies than they realize. There are many things that your manager needs from you. In addition to performing your assigned responsibilities, you can be the source of new ideas, take initiative to resolve problems before they grow, be a sounding board, and recognize new opportunities.

Taking on Some of the Boss’s Tasks

Decisions are made too high in the hierarchy in most organizations. One reason is that managers bring along the tasks they are comfortable with at a lower position as they climb onto the next rung on the ladder. Although these tasks may be easy to complete, they lack the excitement and growth that would occur if someone one or two levels down completed them.

We have tested this numerous times in our work with management teams in what we call the “Hospital Experiment.” We say to the assembled team: “Imagine that your manager is quite sick and can’t be disturbed for the next seven months. Though he will recover and come back, the company doesn’t plan on replacing him in the meantime. Instead, you, collectively, must divide up his work, with individuals taking on the tasks that they think they can perform at a satisfactory level.”

Three things happen:

The moral of this exercise is that one of the ways that junior partners can help their manager is to look over what the boss does and ask the question, “Are some of these tasks that I could do? Would it be a growth experience for me while taking some of the load off my boss’s shoulders?” And that is the way you can frame this topic when talking with your manager. It may be that you are especially good at or interested in an activity that your boss doesn’t like—thereby making the situation a win-win.

You might wonder, “Why should I take on additional work when I am already overloaded?” But in a partnership orientation, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Wouldn’t you want your direct reports to also partner with you? What could they do that would offload tasks from you—and let you do the same with your boss?

Relieving the Boss of Heroic Tendencies

Most leaders tend to feel overly responsible for their unit’s management and overall success. This prompts direct reports to assume that they are responsible only for their areas and that it’s the boss’s job to take care of the larger issues.1 Yet performance and satisfaction grow substantially when employees undertake “shared responsibility.” And that can produce conditions of true partnership.

Leaders who take the traditional heroic approach tend to think they must have all the answers and can’t ask for help. They worry that not having answers shows “weakness” and will cause direct reports to think less of them. However, showing this kind of vulnerability in aspects that aren’t critical to the leader’s core competence can show one’s humanness—and can increase acceptance.

David saw this vividly in working with a family-owned company. Bill, the present chief executive officer (CEO), had taken over from his father five years before. When Bill’s father died, company executives attended the large funeral ceremony. Just before starting the next Executive Committee meeting, the vice presidents told Bill how touched they were at the event. Although Bill seemed pleased, he started the meeting by reviewing the agenda. David stopped him and asked with considerable emotion, “Bill, your father, who built this company, is no longer here. How does it feel now having all the responsibility?” The room went silent as Bill started to talk about the range of feelings he had, not only of grief, but also the burden of carrying on the legacy. The 10 minutes of genuine response not only enhanced the members’ respect for Bill; it significantly increased the team’s cohesion and commitment to the company.

You don’t need such an extreme situation to encourage your boss to show his or her humanness. It may be nothing more than “giving permission” to lay aside that heroic mental model: “You don’t need to have all the answers. You can use us to join with you to find the answer.” Or, “You seem worried and concerned. But you aren’t sharing that with us. What’s upsetting you?” It might be an informal conversation in which you mention that you don’t have heroic expectations of her and would actually respect her if she wanted to ask for help. Of course, this requires that you lay aside your heroic wish to have the perfect boss and can accept her humanity—limitations as well as strengths.

Proactively Giving Support

Whether the leader heads the entire organization or a division, it can indeed be lonely at the top. Part of this is the heroic isolation of not being able to share concerns, doubts, or the desire to ask for help. Another is not feeling understood or appreciated for all the effort that goes with the role.

You also want to support any changes your manager is trying to produce. For example, perhaps he is under pressure from top management to cut costs. In addition to cooperating in your area, how do you respond to colleagues who complain about the boss pushing this program? Do you join in on the griping or explain the situation the boss is in? Is there any way you can help? Partnering isn’t blind acceptance of everything your manager does. If, in a particular situation, you don’t agree with how he is going about the cost-cutting, that has to be directly addressed with your manager: “In order to defend this new directive to others, I need to fully understand why we are going about it this way because I think it is causing some unnecessary resistance.”

Leaders often need support as well in articulating their vision—the personal dream that leaders have for their area. These dreams are often deeply buried within the individual and tend to be expressed in a dry, impersonal manner when they are brought out. Leadership is not only about having a vision; it also requires the ability to express to others what that vision means personally.

The junior partner can help by asking the boss about his or her personal vision for this unit. Your boss is giving a certain number of years to this job; what personal value does it hold for him or her? And how can you help him express that to others?

Knowing the Impact of Your Boss’s Behavior

Another currency you often hold is your view of some of the unintended consequences of your manager’s actions. After giving a talk on influence at a conference, an executive came up to David and confessed:

I blew it with my last boss. I was on a six-month assignment with the director of marketing and we quickly built a good working relationship—in spite of some things that he did. Though he wasn’t entirely dishonest, he had a tendency to tell people what they wanted to hear. I could read him rather well so it didn’t bother me as much as it bothered others.

He regularly came into my office to complain; “I don’t know why other areas don’t trust us—it really makes our work so much more difficult.” I knew exactly what he did that caused this mistrust, but rather than telling him, I just commiserated with him. I now see how I lost an opportunity to really be a partner.

Leaders often complain about what is going on: “Why are people going in different directions when I clearly laid out the strategic vision?” “Why did this misguided product plan happen when I have stressed that we need to be close to the customers?” “The economy is in the dumps; people should know that we have to cut costs.” When the problem is only technical, direct reports are more likely to speak up: “We need to change the way employees account for costs.” But they are more likely to hold back when the issue involves the leader’s behavior. Even though that might appear to be the prudent response, it limits both the boss and the organization’s success. But how can one raise issues that involve the manager’s behavior without stepping into a career-limiting move?

Helping Your Boss Be a Better Boss

Who better knows how a leader leads than those whom he or she leads? Direct reports know whether the boss runs meetings that are useful or counterproductive. They know whether the boss creates clarity or confusion when talking about the organization’s direction. And they know what he does that encourages or discourages taking initiative. Yet, direct reports who think of giving feedback to their superiors fear being considered presumptuous. Honest feedback may be offered when there is a crisis (and a consultant is brought in) or when the employee is quite skilled or close to his or her boss. But because junior partners need to be committed to their manager’s success, there are ways they can help the manager improve even when the relationship isn’t fully developed. In fact, assisting in this way can help build toward deeper partnership.

Because most people take their strengths for granted, one way to show support is to point out these easily overlooked talents. “Boss, I admire the way you kept from getting defensive when challenged.” “You really have a talent for pulling together the best points of different peoples’ arguments.” “I am learning from you to let conflict develop rather than trying to prematurely shut it down.”

Junior partners often fear being seen as “brown-nosing” and therefore hold back. Our experience is that it’s fairly obvious when someone says something complimentary solely for the sake of ingratiation. For example, upper-level managers in a large company talked about the tactics of a third colleague: “Jim believes that people like flattery and whenever he tells me something nice, I cut it in half.” His colleague laughed and said, “I cut it to one-fourth.” Then they mentioned another executive. “Dan’s comments I can trust. Not only does he seem to mean it, but he also tells me when I do screw up.”

Flattery is to ingratiate; positive feedback is to help others become more aware of their strengths. You also want to be specific both about what is valuable in their present behavior as well as areas for development. However, it’s best to separate these in time, because each has value in its own right. We talked in Chapter 5 about the limits of the “sandwich” feedback technique, in which you start with a positive, slip in the critical, and end with a positive. Not only does this not fool anybody, but it devalues the positive.

Employees have trouble giving authentic positive comments, but they also tend to hold back potentially developmental feedback, or raise issues in a way that is either ineffective or counterproductive. We see this repeatedly in an exercise in our leadership programs dealing with “Partnering with Your Boss.” There is a case involving John, the regional director of marketing, and his direct reports. They are meeting to decide whether to spend money on local, regional, or national trade shows. The participants watch a video of the meeting where Craig, one of the direct reports, presents his report and strongly pushes for national trade shows. John disagrees with Craig’s recommendation, “but he doesn’t want to demotivate Craig” by being overt about preferring regional. Instead, he uses leading questions to call on the other direct reports, elicit the information he wants, and then steer them in the “right” direction. Though Craig tries to counter, he’s met with more questions that John directs to the other members. In the end, John is able to say, “It looks like regional trade shows are the best option”—and all the members, except Craig, nod in dutiful agreement.

We then set up a role-play where one of us acts as John, and the participants act as a direct report other than Craig. They are to discuss with John how to be a better boss. Participants are briefed that John sees himself as a “modern manager” who believes in collaborative decision making. However, people have heard him complain that his team isn’t operating as well as it should. He also has an open-door policy, so is quite approachable.

This should be an easy assignment. The junior partners not only know John’s goals, but can accept them. They also know firsthand the effect of John’s behavior and the ways that it is keeping him from achieving these objectives. Finally, John is accessible and is neither punitive nor defensive—as long as he doesn’t feel attacked.

In playing our role as John, we are neither resistant nor punitive, but have a bit of a “tin ear.” We don’t pick up on hints or indirect statements, but only respond if the junior partner is direct without being antagonistic.

Their job is to role-play giving John “developmental” feedback. This shouldn’t be difficult, yet, almost inevitably, each participant playing a direct report acts in an ineffectual way and subsequently loses influence. Many start off by trying to “sweet-talk” John, telling him what a great boss he is. But rather than getting him to be more receptive, this style tends to produce mistrust as John senses insincerity and wonders, “What the hell are they up to?”

The direct report then follows up with an oblique comment or a pseudo-question. “John, do you think yesterday’s meeting went well?” Now, if John was perceptive, he might sense that the question wasn’t really a question and respond, “Do you have some concerns, Norm?” But, as we said, John has a “tin ear” and takes the question at face value. “Yes, I thought we came up with a good decision.” And the person playing the subordinate gives up.

We then have others try, who decide to “up the ante” and—assuming that they’re being “direct”—make accusatory comments that imply that John has negative intentions. “John, you had clearly made up your mind before the meeting and were just trying to manipulate us.” Such interpretive attributions create the exact defensiveness that the direct report was worried about.

So what’s the alternative to this approach? Think of the concepts that we have covered: (1) Start by assuming that your boss is acting reasonably from his or her point of view; (2) realize that your expertise is that you know whether the boss’s behavior is meeting his or her goals, especially with you; (3) find the goal that you can support even though you disagree on the means; and (4) join with your boss and make it an issue of we not you. With those principles in mind, here is a composite of how several conversations have unfolded:

“John, do you have 20 minutes to talk about yesterday’s meeting? I don’t think it went as well as either of us would have liked.”

[John] “Sure, but I thought that we arrived at the correct decision.”

“We might have, but that is not what I came to talk about. I think what you want—and certainly what I want—is a meeting where everybody speaks up and talks straight to each other, and I don’t think we did that.”

[John] “You have a point there. People were sitting on their hands. That is why I called on people; I think that helped, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t think so. While I appreciate your attempts to help, it actually took the responsibility off of us. Also, your questions were heard as leading us to a certain outcome, and we took the easy route and agreed with you.”

[John] “Well what do you suggest? (At this point, we can begin to implement the partnership of joint problem solving.)

Before sharing with participants what this alternative might look like, we ask them, “How would you want your direct reports to raise an issue with you when they have trouble with your approach?” Almost to a person they say, “Be direct. Don’t beat around the bush. Tell it like it is.” What is so fascinating is that experienced executives want the unvarnished truth from their direct reports, but have difficulty giving it to their bosses.

This is not to say that every attempt has failed in this exercise. In fact, one of the better responses was the following:

(The direct report walks into John’s office). “John, I want to talk to you about yesterday’s meeting; I think we let you down.”

[John, surprised] “What do you mean?”

“I think we would agree that it is important that all the issues be on the table—good news as well as bad.” [John nods]. “However, we are relying on you to bring out the bad news and in so doing, we aren’t carrying out our responsibility. We are in this negative loop where, because you ask us questions to surface our doubts, we don’t initiate—and because we don’t initiate, you ask. That’s not the team we want or think we can have.”

[John] “So what do you suggest?”

“I will talk with my peers, but if you just open up the meeting by asking for the main issues and concerns—without posing what appear to be leading questions—we will raise our concerns. Would that work for you?”

Note the exchange qualities in this interaction. The first one reveals a negative exchange (the more John probes for problems, the less direct reports initiate, which gets John to probe further). And the second one is an agreement with the boss (“if we do X, will you not do Y?”). Furthermore, there is a strong partnership orientation: the direct report owns his part of the problem rather than just blaming John and initiates a mutually beneficial solution.

Because the preceding interactions might seem a bit too pat, let’s complicate things. What if the boss asks halfway through the discussion, “Why the hell didn’t you raise this in the meeting?” Again, this would be a great opportunity to negotiate for the future if you can keep from becoming defensive.

“I am sorry, John. I should have, and I let you down. I just wasn’t sure if I could raise this in front of the others. I didn’t want you to feel put on the spot or that I was disloyal. How do you want me to handle this in the future?”

The situation might be further worsened if you sense that John is getting defensive and sending signals that you read as disapproving. This might be a time to take it up a level—which might go like this:

“John, you seem bothered that I am raising this issue. I want the sort of relationship where I don’t have to hold back or be indirect. My intention is to be helpful. If I have some ideas about how our team can work better together, I would like to raise it. Am I doing anything that is causing a problem?”

Many managers are concerned about whether their direct reports are giving them “the whole truth.” So in a sense, talking about building conditions where you don’t have to hold back is in both your and your boss’s best interests. If you are interested in going deeper into how to conduct this kind of dialogue, see Appendix A, “Power Talk: A Hands-On Guide to Supportive Confrontation,” in our previous book Power Up: Transforming Organizations through Shared Leadership.

For Whose Sake?

Even though we strongly believe that it is a junior partner’s responsibility to help the boss be a better boss, there are some words of warning. First, don’t think that you can shape the “perfect boss” to get exactly what you want with enough feedback. There are limits to how much any individual can (or wants to) change. For example, Jack is an executive we worked with who hated conflict. No matter how much input he received, it was still difficult for him when things got hot in meetings. But his direct reports made an agreement with him; whenever he would try to deflect or put off a disagreement, they would laugh and kiddingly say, “come on, Jack, we can deal with this.” You must accept that we all have limits; longing for your manager to change in ways that are near impossible might move you from being a junior partner to being a major nuisance.

Additionally, some very powerful bosses have armored themselves against the possibility of hearing certain kinds of disconfirming feedback. Again we turn to the experiences of someone who has made a career out of speaking truth to power—Len Schlesinger, who has been the direct report to powerful people in both business (The Limited and Au Bon Pain) and academia (Harvard Business School, Ohio State, and Brown), as well as a researcher who has studied many executives:

As soon as powerful people like successful entrepreneurs get a taste of power, they rewrite their own life history. That excludes many below from the belief that they can take action. I call it the “as told to” school of entrepreneurship; they come to believe their own story because it is written. The powerful tell themselves stories about their successes and skills in a self-reinforcing dynamic that edits out messages that don’t fit the story.

In other words, even when you do all the right things to give feedback as a junior partner, you may not be able to get through. And yet, sometimes—as with Mr. Menon and Mollie, from Chapter 2—it is possible to penetrate the resistance, in the interests of helping the organization become more effective.

So how do you know what to bring up? Listen carefully to complaints and concerns your boss expresses. As we mentioned earlier, most leaders are quite vocal about the things that dissatisfy them and direct reports often know what the boss is doing—or not doing—that is causing the problem. You probably have a boatload of expressed currencies to which you can tie your feedback. See your manager’s complaints as expressing currencies in which he or she would be relieved to have you pay. When feedback comes with a partnership orientation, it is not a criticism—but rather, a gift. Joel Peterson, chairman of the board of JetBlue, repeatedly says, “Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions.”

Notes

1. Again, heroic leadership and its antidotes, post-heroic or shared responsibility leadership, are the themes of our books, Managing for Excellence and Power Up.