I have a boss who asks for everything now. He’ll issue an order and then expect the work to be completed within hours. The demanding deadlines make me feel jumpy as I am someone who likes to plan ahead and work in a methodical, calm manner. But this insistence on asking for everything at the last minute then wanting it completed in record time is making me feel stressed. How can I resolve this? PF, Dubai.
The issue here is that you have different preferences around how you like to work. He sounds, from your brief description, as if he is all energy and immediacy, someone who shoots from the hip and wants immediate, urgent responses whenever he asks for something to be done. In short, he makes a drama out of a crisis and a crisis out of the everyday.
You, on the other hand, sound more methodical, more analytical, someone who wants to come to a considered, thought-through point of view which you are confident you can defend if you are asked to do so. You each have different strengths, but just as you couldn’t work well the way he likes to work, he couldn’t work well the way you like to work either. Trouble is, he’s the boss.
Many of us make the mistake your boss is making: we assume everyone wants to work the way we want to work. We don’t see or understand that some people have different ways of doing things – ways which, while neither better nor worse, will bring their best work out of them. The best bosses make sure that they understand how each member of their team likes to work, so that they can be sure to get the best work from each individual member of the team.
The less successful bosses assume that everyone is a mini-me – a perfect replica of their own personality and professional style. Bosses who lack the perception to see that each of us is individual, with our own preferred way of absorbing information, making decisions, relating to the world around us, miss the simplest of tricks: people work best when they are allowed to work the way that suits them best.
A boss should always be keen to have people produce their best work. So the way to resolve this issue is to speak with your boss and explain that the way he is asking you to work is not the way to get your best work from you. Explain that you can, of course, respond to an emergency but, generally, you produce much better quality work when you are given an opportunity to work in your preferred style. You might need examples to back up your assertion, and you need to be sure that he understands that you can respond to emergencies, it is just that you don’t want everything to be treated as if it is an emergency.
An empathetic boss will understand this and will be keen to get your best work from you. An insensitive boss will resent your request – which says more about him than it says about you, but still leaves you with the problem of being required to work out of preference on a regular basis. Your choices then are to learn how to respond to these demanding deadlines without getting jumpy, or to look for a more empathetic working environment (either within your organisation or in another place of work). Or perhaps find someone in your team who does like working this way and delegate the boss’s demands to this individual. Or do the work your way and see if he even notices that his demands are met within a different time frame to the one he imposed.
What you must try hard not to do is allow his approach and demands to affect the quality of your work: if this happens then you are a two-time loser, because you are working in a way you dislike, and you are being judged harshly on the work you produce.
Doctor's prescription: Get ready for that difficult but critical conversation where you explain to him how to get the best out of you.
Roger Delves is the director of the Ashridge Executive Masters in Management and an adjunct professor at the Hult International Business School. He is the co-author of the book The Top 50 Management Dilemmas: Fast Solutions to Everyday Challenges. Email him at business@thenational.ae for advice on any work issues
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