Do Business Well

B. If your manager forces you to do things her way . . . she is probably focusing on process too much. Pick your moment, perhaps during your performance planning meeting, and tell her that you want to define your role more by its outcomes than by its steps. Ask her which outcomes she would use to measure your success. As you discuss this, describe for her how your style, although different from hers, will still enable you to achieve the outcomes expected of you. Your point here is not to persuade her that your style is better than hers. Your point is simply that your style is the most efficient way for you to reach the outcomes on which you and she have agreed. When viewed through this lens, her style, no matter how sensible it might seem to her, really does not apply.

Of course, a misfocus on steps rather than outcomes may not be the problem. She may be forcing you to do things her way because she likes this feeling of power and control. If you can adapt to her style without compromising your integrity, fine; otherwise you may wish to make a move to another job.

If your manager praises you inappropriately or at inappropriate times . . . you can suggest alternatives. This isn’t always an easy conversation. In fact, telling your manager that you much prefer to be praised in private rather than in public, can sometimes feel arrogant and presumptuous. Once again, you have to pick your moment. It would probably be neither wise nor sensitive to correct him immediately after he had the whole team stand up and cheer your success—Mark D., the insurance agent, certainly woke his manager up by storming off the stage, but we wouldn’t recommend this approach. Instead make your comments at a time when you are discussing all aspects of your performance, perhaps during the structured, dispassionate setting of a performance planning meeting, (and it would not hurt to thank him for his good intentions). This will show him that you have thought carefully about what you need from him and will give him a chance to assimilate what you told him into the way he manages you.

If the problem is less that he gives you the wrong kind of praise, and more that he gives you no praise at all, you will need to survive for as long as possible on your own reserves. If you are a natural self-starter, you may find that you can survive adequately for quite a while without any recognition at all. Most people, though, will soon feel a drain on their energy. Faced with the prospect of a recognitionless environment, you may wish to consider a move.

If your manager constantly asks you questions about how you are doing and feeling, or otherwise intrudes . . . suggest that you don’t find this helpful. It is a delicate matter because you don’t want to seem insubordinate or as if you are his manager. But ask if it would be okay if you “check in” with him less frequently than he obviously wants to check in with you. Tell him that it is no reflection on him. Say that you are hoping to function a little more independently, and that if you can schedule a “check-in” meeting on your cycle rather than his, then you will probably be able to be a great deal more productive. Obviously it is a sensitive situation, but if you use unambiguous, unemotional terminology like “I like to check in every couple of weeks rather than every couple of days,” you should be able to handle it and come to some practical arrangements that work for both of you.

If your manager is intruding because he is suspicious of you, the most unambiguous, unemotional terminology will be of little help. You will have to resort to a different strategy—a move.

If the problems we have discussed are of an altogether different nature, which is to say, if your manager consistently ignores you, distrusts you, takes credit for your work, blames you for his mistakes, or disrespects you . . . then get out from under him. You might look for a lateral move or another position within the company, or you might simply leave. Yes, you might decide to stick it out for six months in the hope that he will leave. Yes, the generous company benefits might dull your pain enough to make your situation tolerable. Yes, you might be able to find a sympathetic ear with your manager’s boss or with the human resources department. But don’t fool yourself. If his behavior has been consistent over time, he is not going to change that much. Some managers simply should not be managers. Their misbehavior is not a function of misunderstandings or misdirected good intentions. It is a function of lack of talent (or sometime neurosis). Lacking the appropriate four-lane highways in their mind, they will forever make poor decisions. They will forever mistrust, overshadow, abandon, intrude, and stifle. They have to. It’s in their nature. Neither you nor this post nor weeks of sensitivity training will give them the strengths, the self-esteem, and the security they need to be a great manager.

We would like to be able to tell you, “Don’t worry. Soldier on. Rely on the strength of your own talent and you will still excel.” But we cannot. You might be able to survive your predicament for a while in the hope that the manager will prove his own undoing and get fired. But, lacking a good manager, you won’t be able to last long. As this has shown, in your struggle to turn all of your talents into performance, your immediate manager is a very important partner. If you are cursed with a truly bad one, then you will never see the best of you. No matter how much you enjoy the job itself, get out, fast. You deserve better.

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