My boss is a great person, but sometimes I can’t seem to get his attention and support for the things I think are most important for my department. Any suggestions on how influence my manager in this way?

The first thing you must do to gain the support and ear of your manager is to be the best employee you can be. You must:

  • Do quality work
  • Embrace company values
  • Meet your deadlines
  • Play well in the organization’s political sandbox
  • . . . and generally, be a true asset to your company

With these things now in place you can influence your manager. That said, when reading these suggestions, note that you should choose your tactics wisely, based on your relationship with your manager, your department’s role within IT, and the culture of your organization in general.

  1. When you bring issues to your manager, also provide potential solutions and your suggested recommendation. With a well thought out recommendation in hand, you will very likely be able to correct the issue in the manner you wish.
  2. Try to view the world from your manager’s perspective. This will not only help you better understand your manager’s needs and wants, it will also help your professional growth should you wish, in time, to attain your manager’s position.
  3. Be transparent with your manager. Be equally willing to tell them about the good news as well as the bad news. This approach of sharing both good and bad news has many advantages including the following:
    1. It develops trust from your manager toward you.
    2. When you give your boss good news, they will believe you because they know that you are also willing to admit bad news.
    3. It allows you to get advice from your boss on issues requiring action. This advice will not only help you correct your problem, but it will also help you grow professionally by allowing you to gain knowledge as to how your boss would handle the issue
    4. It allows you to take credit for correcting a difficult problem, because you are originally willing to tell your boss that an issue needed attention. In essence, you can’t get credit for correcting a problem if your boss never knew that the problem existed.
  1. Be a department thought leader regarding department processes and technologies. This will help make you more valuable to your department and in turn to your manager. This added value will (or should) cause your manager to take your opinions and recommendations seriously, thus making your suggestions more likely to be accepted.
  2. Begin to think both tactically and strategically. This combination of a short term and long term perspective will help you create and present better ideas and suggestions to your manager, thus making the implementation of your solutions more likely.
  3. Consider issues from both a technical and non-technical perspective. Like thinking tactically and strategically, this dual perspective will help you define and present better potential solutions and recommendations.

In closing and in summary, the way to best manage your boss begins with being the best employee you can be, grows by gaining your manager’s trust, and concludes by creating innovative and well thought out solutions to department problems that you would like to solve based on your recommendations.

(First published in ITworld)

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