#CareerAdvice : #YourCareer – 3 Questions To Uncover Your Real Relationship With Your Boss. A #MustRead !

In a perfect world, all bosses would be great bosses. Everyone would work for a person that was empathetic and supportive, understood their unique gifts and inspired them to be better leaders themselves.

But that’s not reality. According to Gallup, 70% of American workers rate themselves as “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” at work which speaks to the quality of the relationship between leaders and employees in organizations today. In fact, many of the people disengaged are themselves leaders, working uninspired and passing that same feeling down to their direct reports.

So when you celebrate National Boss’s Day later this week, what will you be celebrating? Are you among the small percentage of people that already works for someone great or will you take this opportunity to assess if your relationship with a disconnected or outright challenging boss can be improved?

Either way, it’s important to understand the role you play in creating and maintaining a productive relationship with your boss, a relationship that will position you not only for success in your current job but also develop you for the next one. Here are the three questions you should ask yourself to assess the quality of your connection and how to improve it, if needed.

1. Do they relate to you as a peer?

Respect is not an all-or-nothing decision. You can respect someone as a human being or for a particular skill, but not respect them as your peer. No matter what your reporting relationship is or how much more experience your boss might have, to respect you as a peer is to seek and trust your counsel, especially on matters that you have more expertise in than them.

Yet many people find themselves working for a boss who will solicit input from them only to ignore it 95% of the time. Maybe they don’t even ask for input at all. While it is the job of leaders to weigh options and make independent decisions, deep down you know whether your boss values your perspective and trusts your judgment. It’s something you can feel in your gut whenever you interact with them.

Be real with yourself about the nature of your relationship.

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If they don’t see you as a peer, you need to ask yourself why. Have you made some missteps that have clouded their view of you? Are you lacking expertise in a critical area? Have they been so distracted with work commitments that they failed to get to know you? Are they too arrogant to rely on others? Is ageism, racism, gender bias or heterosexism at play?

It’s important to get to the bottom of why they don’t view you as a peer. It could highlight a problem with the company’s culture, a leadership deficiency or something you need to work on yourself. Don’t jump to quick conclusions and write off the relationship, but don’t leave this concern unaddressed either.

When you work for someone that doesn’t have significant respect for your capabilities, or doesn’t view you as an intellectual equal, it will limit your career. Being recognized as a peer doesn’t just make working together easier and more enjoyable, but it is also a necessary step in moving your career to the next level. Find ways to show your value or consider making a career change. You will feel stifled if you don’t.

2. Do you know what skills they are developing in you?

The difference between working for someone and being groomed for your next role hinges on learning and development. If you have no idea what skills your boss may or may not be developing in you, there’s a good chance there aren’t developing any.

A boss that isn’t working to raise your game probably isn’t especially invested in your career progression. That doesn’t mean that you don’t enjoy working for them. Your satisfaction with your boss is influenced by many other things, such as personality and flexibility.

But just know that as long as you stay working for a boss that isn’t actively developing your skills, you are probably working for someone that is also not going out of their way to look for new opportunities to increase your visibility and advocate for your career growth.

One thing that great bosses do differently is promote their employees when they aren’t around. Yet it’s impossible to know what someone says about you when you aren’t there to hear it so it’s hard to know if your boss is doing this for you or not. Instead, assess the amount of attention put into your development as this is a clear indicator to the level of engagement and sponsorship your boss has toward you.

If you realize now that you aren’t being developed by your boss, there’s still hope for the relationship. Bosses are busy and it may have simply become one of those “important, but not urgent” tasks that are easy to lose sight of.

Help your boss rekindle and reprioritize your development by initiating a conversation about where they think you have the most potential to grow and the specific activities you two can take together to get you to that next level.

3. Do you understand their motivations?

Do you know what makes your boss tick? What they want out of their career? What things matter to them in life? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you can’t help position your boss to meet their unique definition of success.

A great relationship with your boss is marked by a win-win dynamic. You should be helping your boss get what they want, just as much as they are helping you.

For some bosses, that means something tangible like sales growth or money saved, while it may be more subjective for others. You can play a key role in helping your boss become recognized in the industry, raise their internal visibility, find greater meaning in their job or have more time to spend with their family.

But if you don’t know what they want most, then you probably aren’t helping them get it. You may even be accidentally standing in the way.

There are bosses that will always feel more comfortable hiding or pursuing their agenda alone. And while that is their choice, it should reveal to you that you are not a part of their inner circle. Your relationship will never be close.

But before you put them in this category, or give up on ever joining their inner circle, try showing a greater interest in getting to know them as a person, and not just a boss. Through a series of informal conversations, you can gain insight into their personal and career history, as well as what they’ve learned about the company and how it has shaped their current goals.

In the same way that you want your boss to get to know and support you, you should make it a regular priority to discover their changing needs and motivations.

Author: Kourtney Whitehead is a career expert and author of Working Whole. You can learn more about her work at Simply Service.

Forbes.com | October 13, 2019