Effective communication with your boss is essential to your career success. One of the things your boss will always want is proactive communication of your work status & progress. It will show that you are on top of your work and you respect him enough to keep him informed.
This not always easy. Below is a situation a Soft Skills Gym member faced. What would you do if you were him? Share your comments below. He agreed to let me share it in case his situation and my advice can help you learn how to better communicate work status with your boss.
Short summary of your work or career pain and your question:
Hello Lei, I have been with my firm for 14 years and have difficulty communicating with my boss to a point where I have to “measure my words”. My title is director and my direct boss is our President and CEO.
Context and story behind your question (more detail the better)
My boss is very controlling and fits the traits of a narcissist. He tells me he wants a report every day and to come and see him. I am uncomfortable because it feels that he is putting me on trial. I never seem to be prepared enough for him and he always asks me a question that I can’t answer.
What solutions you have considered if you had to answer this question yourself
The solution I am hoping is that “Soft Skills” can give me direction on how to handle reporting to my boss so that I am clearly responding to all of his questions. You see other people in my office know what to say and how to say it. It must be me and my approach.
Other background info relevant to your story (e.g., are you an individual contributor or team manager, # years at company, etc)
This is the scenario:
His assistant will buzz me and say can you come and see (his name)? Many times I never know the agenda. When I go into his office, he will start in by asking, “what the status” of the project? When I give him an update, and if there are any issues, the first question he asks me is, when did that first come up? Instead of an update, it becomes a full fledged investigation. He then asks me why I have a problem updating him and why I did not tell him things sooner. When I tell him the event just occurred, he is skeptical of my response, and complains why he can’t be told sooner. He expects me to report daily and then when I try to accommodate that request, something always comes up which prevents me from doing so. He seems to do this with others as well but they appear to handle it better. What I mean is my boss accepts their explanation.
The answers to questions that he asks me may be arising out of my reporting and not having 100% confirmation on what I am telling him. I want to stay positive and keep my mind clear of any emotional thoughts that may influence how I respond. I know that reporting sometimes is a question and answer session, but it seems more like a probe when we meet. It should be a healthy dialogue, one that is supportive of issues, and one that is constructive.
This is why I need help. I have been with the company 14 years and somethings its as though I am going backwards. Hopefully, you can give me some sound advice.
Best Regards,
H.
Thanks for reaching out. I think this situation is fixable. As much as you may want to change him, you only can control what you do differently in order to improve this situation. Here is what I think may be happening and what you can do about it. Based on the scenario you sent, it sounds like your boss really would like a lot more status updates from you on
- Is all your work or project going well?
- What are the issues arising?
- How are you addressing them?
- He may be concerned about whether you can handle all your work – has anything happened recently that you were not able to handle well in his eyes? Has he been this way for the last 14 years or just recently?
- He was getting impatient because it seems like he always has to ask you for the status and you don’t proactively tell him what he needs to know before he asks. This can irritate any manager and make their job much harder in managing you.
- He may want to consulted more often on how you resolve unexpected issues that arise.
Assuming you are handling your work fine, then this is really a situation of keeping him better informed of your work status. Here are 4 tips on what you can try to improve the situation
- Give him the daily status like he asked. You said “He expects me to report daily and then when I try to accommodate that request, something always comes up which prevents me from doing so” This is part of the reason he is on your case. If he told you he wants a daily report and he is your boss, you must provide it. Nothing else should come up to prevent you from doing so. Otherwise, you are inadvertently disrespecting him and basically showing him that you have more important things to do than doing what he requested. One thing that can help you is create a quick template for your status, so it doesn’t take more than 15-20 min to write it and email it to him daily. Include all the categories that you know he wants to know and the key updates since yesterday. Some examples are
- Overall progress of each key work item you own – is it on track or delayed
- Any issues you have discovered and when you discovered it?
- What are you doing to address it?
- Ask for his feedback on what else you should consider in addressing any issues?
- Talk to a trusted colleague. If other colleagues are doing well in dealing with the CEO, then it will serve you well to talk to one of them. Find a colleague who you have a good relationship with and get some tips on how he or she deals with him. Find out if she or he also get inquiries daily and how she or he addresses them. Maybe she or he also have a good status template to share with you to use.
- Have a frank conversation with the CEO about what’s going on – There seems to be an elephant in the room and it repeats everyday, so maybe it’s best to address it with him head on. Proactively set up a 30 min meeting with him to talk about this daily exchange. I know it’s uncomfortable, but perhaps being honest is a good place to understand where he is coming from. Perhaps there is a way to resolve this tension directly. Here are some tips
- Start with something positive – like “I really like working here and respect what you have done with this company. ” You need to find something you respect about him and say that to make this work
- Then say “It seems like I am always not providing enough information to you. I would like to better understand what you need from me and resolve this once and for all. I want to make this easy for you.”
- Then listen to what exactlyu he is uncertain about. All this daily probing is a symptom of a underlying problem. Your goal is to figure out what that is and then how you may address it.
- End the meeting with some action plan of how you will change how your work to address his need.
- Then make sure you keep your word and do that to rebuild the relationship with your boxx.
- Learn how to respond when you don’t know the full answer – It’s impossible to know the full answer to every question he may ask. Here is how you can address it calmly when you don’t know the complete answer.
- Tell him “That’s a really good question. I am glad you brought it up. ” This will make him feel good and buy you time to think of a good response.
- Then tell him “Here is what I know from the top of my head. …. ” Tell him the piece you know
- Tell him “I know that’s not the full answer but I will research it right away and get back to you within the hour. “
- Then do a thorough research right after the meeting and email him the full answer within the hour to his question. This will help you build your credibility with him.
Very wise advise thank you so much keep on
I have been in both roles…the subordinate role when I was younger and had less confidence. Some things to remember, and I admit some are a rephrasing of what Lei wrote: – Trust somehow has not been established between you & your boss, and/or it has been broken. Reflect back on this and and try to identify if there ever was a trust relationship before where she/he could get the right answers from you when needed, and could trust that you were on top of things – How aware are you of progress of key projects that are important to… Read more »
Excellent advice! There are different types of bosses that have a variety of communication needs. It is crucial to career success to tap into not only what your boss needs but then win their confidence. This requires knowing your stuff cold and displaying confidence and respect for your boss — no matter how frustrating it might be.