As hard as we try sometimes our priorities are not the same as our bosses. There can be be disagreements, or simple miscommunication, over what to do, how to do it, and when.
Chances are, that you’re well qualified for your job. You probably have an undergraduate degree. You may have an MBA as well; and no doubt you have anything from a reasonable amount of experience to a great deal. And so if you’re managed like an 18-year old who’s fresh out of high school, then you probably find it frustrating. It also means that there’s potential for serious discord just around the corner.
The question is how do you manage it? How do you disagree with your boss without coming across as insubordinate? And how do you keep your job in the process?
The first thing is to recognize that your boss is the boss. This can be very humbling. In the West, where individualism is held up as supreme, humility is not considered to be a virtue most of the time. It’s refreshing when you come across it, but it’s seldom rewarded. And so to show respect for someone who is your boss, whether you like that person or not, requires a humble spirit; and that’s something you need to develop.
(It’s worth mentioning here that if you don’t want a boss, then it could be because you’re an entrepreneur at heart. The world needs people like that. They are the ones who start businesses that create new products and services. If that’s what you should be doing, then do it. But as long as you’re working for someone else, then you need to remember who the boss is.)
The psychology of humility works in your favor, too. That’s because it prevents you from coming across as a threat. Your boss may recognize that you are more competent, and that may make him or her feel insecure. That’s not a good thing. You want your boss to feel secure around you because it will engender trust; and trust will ultimately give you greater freedom to do what you want to do in the first place. It will also give you the confidence to do better work, rather than to be looking over your shoulder all the time. But for that to work, you have to make sure that no threat exists.
The second thing follows on from that. It’s that you, in effect, must admit to your boss that he or she is more competent than you are. This goes back to the idea of being an entrepreneur. If you were more competent, then you’d be a competitor; not an employee. So you need to recognize that until that happens, your boss is more competent at your job than you are. You do that by openly agreeing in the nicest possible tone of voice that you will do what that person wants you to do. You could say, for example,
“I’ve had a look at the problem we discussed, and it seems to me that this is what we ought to do. I know that you prefer this other method, and I will do that if that’s what is needed.”
When you say it that way, you are acknowledging that your boss knows more about how to solve the problem than you do. You have then earned the right to say something like,
“However, if we do it like that, I’m concerned that this will happen.”
If you say it the right way, then your boss shouldn’t feel threatened. You both may still disagree, but at least you won’t have offended anyone.
There’s a funny thing about confrontations. When people feel that they could lose the argument, they’ll dig in their heels to hold onto it. But, when you remove that threat by agreeing to do what they say, quite often they’ll give you what you wanted in the first place because now they have nothing to defend. In other words, it’s no longer a battle to “save face;” instead it’s about what is most expedient.
The second thing must be to decide which “battles” are worth fighting. In today’s organizations, everyone is expected to be more autonomous than 25 or 30 years ago. Global competition has made it uneconomical to go back to the close supervision of traditional organizations that was so prevalent before the mid-1980s. What that means is that you will be expected to make more decisions for yourself; but it doesn’t mean that you should expect to have it your way all the time. The risk is that if your boss gets the feeling that you’re going to object to everything he or she has to say, then you will be setting your own course for an eventual exit. So choose wisely.
The third thing is to win graciously. You do yourself no favors if you intimate or say that “I told you so.” That is an insubordinate attitude, and it could cost you your job. No one likes to be wrong. Not many people will admit that they made a mistake least of all to someone they supervise. Even fewer will say that you were right. And so if you “rub their noses” in that fact, you will not make yourself popular.
If you remember these three things every time you find yourself disagreeing with your boss, then you will stand a much better chance of keeping your job.
