I know more than my boss!

How many of you sit in meetings and cringe when your manager talks about something that they know very little about – in which you might be the expert or at least know more than him/her – or they just get stuff totally wrong? Or there is the manager that has almost no idea what it is that you do all day – so sometime you feel like there is no support or that you manager can not accurately give you a performance review or that your manager might as well not be there at all. My favorite…the manager that consistently underestimates the impact that you have on your team, your clients and/or your organization – because you do your job well, they think you don’t do that much at all.

I’m not going to debate whether your manager is useless or whether you are justified in your opinions. It actually doesn’t matter. In almost all cases, you have no control over who your manager is and thus, get what you get – flaws and all. What we do control is our actions and reactions to our manager! And boy do we react. Many of us, by our demeanor, attitude, our expressions, let our managers know every day what we think of them – you know the look…“you ain’t worth squat”, “I don’t even know why I deal with your incompetence” looks. These reactions – which we employ to let everyone know, that we “know” the deal, that we are in control – seemingly making us feel more powerful, but they actually weaken our position.

You manager is in a position of authority – he may have some personal intimidation toward you, but it’s not general true professional intimidation. They are not worried about losing that next promotion to you, not relying on you to set them up for success. In fact, they generally mean a lot more to your success than you to theirs – particularly when the relationship is challenging. Your manager will get access that you don’t get, enjoy a status or position that you don’t have and I almost forgot, will get to assess your performance - having at least some control over your promotion and compensation within the organization.

As I said, your manager is in a position of authority, but he/she is not necessarily in the strongest position of power and influence. In a perfect world, there is a power equilibrium between you and your manager – you respect each other; she know your value and worth to the organization, she values your contributions and understands your options and prospects inside and out of the company, you appreciate your role within the team and recognize your manager’s “authority” over you in the company, you respect your manager’s business challenges and value her insight in helping you execute your work...Alas, not many of us find ourselves in such utopian circumstances – hence, the power struggle (which by the way, the manager is at an advantage to win).

So what to do…one of my friends, SW, told me once, “Play offense, not defense”. The offensive strategy is the best approach for advancing your career while also maintaining your integrity. It’s a simple idea in theory, but more challenging in practice. Have you had the situation in which your manager takes credit for your work as their own? The defensive strategy might be self-promotion or trying to withhold as many details from your manager so they have to seek you out for information. These strategies actually create tension or make you seem unprepared, for example where you withhold information. On the flip side, the offensive strategy might be to set your manager up for success – give him everything he needs to appear knowledgeable, allow your work to speak for itself. Now let’s be clear the offensive strategizing doesn’t stop at you thoroughly doing your job. That’s just the beginning, but what it does is increase your power and influence – influence over what is coming out of your manager’s mouth, influence over the outcomes and successes of your organization - and can result in more power over your circumstances and in your relationship with your manager.

In defensive strategy scenario, your work and ultimate results may suffer, your integrity may be compromised and your days may be spent reacting to your manager’s comments or actions of the day. While with the offensive strategy, you achieve your results and in part drive your manager’s results, you should be able to sleep better at night knowing that you did what you set out to do on the job and while your manager may not give your just due in term of credit – he can’t bad mouth you and he likely can’t stand squarely in the way of your success.

Try playing offense. It’s actually quite liberating!