Project Management And Dealing With Your Boss With Ease
By Tony Neale
Have you ever had to deal with your boss and feel that it is difficult to create a good working relationship?
As a Project Manager you will use your poise and leadership to create a regular opportunity to have one on one meeting times.
How? Be gentle and assertive at the same time and book a time once a week for 20 to 30 minutes. If you can – book in neutral territory. This could be a meeting room or if you can in an informal place such as the work café.
In these meetings always be mindful of your own state – present yourself in a calm, approachable and friendly fashion. Establish good rapport as much as possible with plenty of eye contact, erect and relaxed posture. Speak in a firm and gentle tone.
During the meeting be concise and approachable and be open to the ideas suggested by your manager. Even if you disagree with your manager’s ideas state that you will consider the ideas and say you need time to think about it. This shows respect to your manager. You then research his ideas later and come up with pros and cons and discuss with your manager delicately and it might be better to go in another direction and suggest your plan forward again with the pros and cons.
In my experience always display gratitude and respect to your manager and where possible praise him/her to others. This displays your loyalty and gratitude that are important leadership qualities. This also sends the message to your manager that you are no threat to him/her.
If your manager has a tendency to be demanding and forceful this is often a sign your manager is under pressure or stressed by higher management. Therefore as a Project Manager you need to be able to read your manager and help and support him/her as best you can. A good way to take the pressure off your manager is to volunteer to reduce the workload by helping out with your manager’s tasks and this will be most appreciated.
Time is often a constraint for your manager, so therefore make your meetings as short and effective as possible. As a Project Manager you will only raise issues which you cannot deal with and need higher management to deal with. Always suggest options and plans for your manager to make his/her job as easy as possible and hence he/she will welcome.
This relationship is the most important relationship at your work place and as such you need to prioritize this into your weekly schedule.
In conclusion these techniques are other examples of self-mastery as a Project Manager. The major key is to stay calm and resourceful under stressful and difficult situations and to lead by example.
Tony Neale is an experienced Project Manager with more than 15 years experience on large projects with clients such as HP, Cadbury, Bluescope Steel, Amcor and many others. He is also certified with ITIL and provide expertise in Project Management Office arena. He currently likes to expand my interpersonal sphere of Project management and is a fully certified NLP Master under the Christopher Howard companies. Tony is an active PMI Melbourne (Australia) chapter member and has recently been appointed to the management team to start up the Project Management Institute (PMI) Melbourne Project Manager mentor / mentee programme. He has successfully managed Mentor programmes for a Global IT company. His passion is to enable people to be the best they can be and at the same time deliver great Project outcomes.
He has established his own Project Management coaching and mentoring business and his website is http://projectmanagementsolutions.com.au. Please visit and suggest articles you would like him to write for you.
