I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know by Kate White Page B
Authors: Kate White
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• Dazzle your boss but don’t make your colleagues listen to the details. And avoid humble bragging, which involves showing off while couching it as some sort of self-deprecation. (I.e., this is a tweet that showed up on the @humblebrag hall of fame: “What the heck does one wear to a meeting at the Style network? Seriously.”)
• Go big but not if it means throwing someone under the bus. One way to judge how colleagues view you is to pay attention to their interactions with you. If they exclude you from conversations and group lunches, if they often seem hostile, it may be because your actions have become galling rather than simply gutsy.
{ 4 Tips for Masterfully Managing Your Boss }
I have had both good bosses and bad bosses in my career, which I’m sure is true for many people. There was, for instance, Art Cooper, who went on to become the legendary editor of GQ and who once sent me to interview Helen Gurley Brown because he said he could picture me as editor of Cosmopolitan one day (good boss!). And then there was the boss who asked me to come by her apartment one Saturday and, once I arrived, seemed to be hinting that I try a threesome with her and the smoking-jacketed married man she was seeing (ugh, bad boss!).
Within days of starting to work for someone, you will have a visceral sense of whether you’ve signed on with a good boss or bad boss. Does your boss listen? Give clear instructions and challenge you to really go for it? Inspire you? Praise what you do well? Critique you fairly? If yes, good for you! This is going to make it easier for you to succeed. But if you’ve been handed a bad boss, don’t despair. A bad boss can be a ticket for success as well. Of course, it will be tough to achieve much of anything if your boss has created a toxic work setting or is failing at her job, and the only real rule to follow in that kind of situation is to escape as quickly as you can—go to a new department, new company, whatever. But if your bad boss is simply a lardass, that can be a real asset for you because she may turn over all sorts of projects to you that will advance your skills and reputation.
So at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if your boss is good or bad, as long as you end up with the opportunities and credit you need. You just have to be smart about how you handle the situation.
Let’s start, then, with the premise that you are working for either a good boss or a good bad boss. I’m going to tell you four little things you need to know to manage your boss effectively and gain all you can from the relationship. At this point you may be thinking “Wait, isn’t doing a great job enough?” Unfortunately, it isn’t. Bosses are human, and little things can get under their skin and rub them the wrong way.
1. Your boss has both sweet spots and hot spots, and you need to determine what they are. Sweet spots are the little things that he responds to positively, such as punctuality, fast turnaround, or frequent updates. Hit those sweet spots as much as you can. Of course, it’s a given that you are doing your job well. But seemingly little things matter to bosses, too.
His hot spots are the behaviors that seriously piss him off, such as tardiness or long-winded answers or even something minor, such as your wearing your iPod at your desk. Avoid touching those hot spots.
How do you know what his sweet spots and hot spots are? Dr. Mark Howell, a New York psychotherapist who has helped me a lot in my research over the years, says that “you have to play the scientist” in the landscape of your office, gathering the data you need. “First,” he says, listen to the gossip around your workplace. That can tell you so much. If there are negative aspects to your boss, you’ll learn about them if you pay attention to what people say.”
Sometimes you have to listen between the lines, though, because coworkers may be too nervous to be blunt. Note their tone of voice and
• Dazzle your boss but don’t make your colleagues listen to the details. And avoid humble bragging, which involves showing off while couching it as some sort of self-deprecation. (I.e., this is a tweet that showed up on the @humblebrag hall of fame: “What the heck does one wear to a meeting at the Style network? Seriously.”)
• Go big but not if it means throwing someone under the bus. One way to judge how colleagues view you is to pay attention to their interactions with you. If they exclude you from conversations and group lunches, if they often seem hostile, it may be because your actions have become galling rather than simply gutsy.
{ 4 Tips for Masterfully Managing Your Boss }
I have had both good bosses and bad bosses in my career, which I’m sure is true for many people. There was, for instance, Art Cooper, who went on to become the legendary editor of GQ and who once sent me to interview Helen Gurley Brown because he said he could picture me as editor of Cosmopolitan one day (good boss!). And then there was the boss who asked me to come by her apartment one Saturday and, once I arrived, seemed to be hinting that I try a threesome with her and the smoking-jacketed married man she was seeing (ugh, bad boss!).
Within days of starting to work for someone, you will have a visceral sense of whether you’ve signed on with a good boss or bad boss. Does your boss listen? Give clear instructions and challenge you to really go for it? Inspire you? Praise what you do well? Critique you fairly? If yes, good for you! This is going to make it easier for you to succeed. But if you’ve been handed a bad boss, don’t despair. A bad boss can be a ticket for success as well. Of course, it will be tough to achieve much of anything if your boss has created a toxic work setting or is failing at her job, and the only real rule to follow in that kind of situation is to escape as quickly as you can—go to a new department, new company, whatever. But if your bad boss is simply a lardass, that can be a real asset for you because she may turn over all sorts of projects to you that will advance your skills and reputation.
So at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if your boss is good or bad, as long as you end up with the opportunities and credit you need. You just have to be smart about how you handle the situation.
Let’s start, then, with the premise that you are working for either a good boss or a good bad boss. I’m going to tell you four little things you need to know to manage your boss effectively and gain all you can from the relationship. At this point you may be thinking “Wait, isn’t doing a great job enough?” Unfortunately, it isn’t. Bosses are human, and little things can get under their skin and rub them the wrong way.
1. Your boss has both sweet spots and hot spots, and you need to determine what they are. Sweet spots are the little things that he responds to positively, such as punctuality, fast turnaround, or frequent updates. Hit those sweet spots as much as you can. Of course, it’s a given that you are doing your job well. But seemingly little things matter to bosses, too.
His hot spots are the behaviors that seriously piss him off, such as tardiness or long-winded answers or even something minor, such as your wearing your iPod at your desk. Avoid touching those hot spots.
How do you know what his sweet spots and hot spots are? Dr. Mark Howell, a New York psychotherapist who has helped me a lot in my research over the years, says that “you have to play the scientist” in the landscape of your office, gathering the data you need. “First,” he says, listen to the gossip around your workplace. That can tell you so much. If there are negative aspects to your boss, you’ll learn about them if you pay attention to what people say.”
Sometimes you have to listen between the lines, though, because coworkers may be too nervous to be blunt. Note their tone of voice and
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