Your Boss Is Not Your Parent, Clergy, Friend, Confidante, etc.

I think it all started going wrong around the time work began to take up the lion’s share of everyone’s waking hours.

When I was little, early every morning my father would get down on the floor where I was playing and point to the clock and say: “When the hands are straight up and down, that’s six o’clock, and that’s when you’ll see me coming back through that door.” And most days he did just that. He’d have dinner with my mother and me, and sometimes read the paper. Some evenings he went to a meeting — Chamber of Commerce, American Legion, Lion’s Club, Red Cross, United Way — for an hour or two, and then come home. He enjoyed his participation in community activities and derived a lot of satisfaction from the time he spent and the interactions he had there.

My work days were never like that, and probably neither are yours. As work has eaten up more of our days, we expect more from our jobs — and from the people we report to.

It’s worthwhile to take a moment to look at what a boss actually is:

In the simplest terms, your boss is a person who has been given a piece of the company’s work to do and who has (happily) decided (at least for now) that YOU can help get some of that work done.

So what can you reasonably expect this person to do for you?

• Give you work to do that connects to unit objectives and higher company goals and objectives.
• Help you get the funding and people you need to get your work done.
• Be a source of ideas and support when you get stuck.
• Communicate clearly the results expected and provide feedback about how your performance is measuring up.
• See to it that you receive compensation commensurate with the value you contribute.

That’s pretty much it. But we need more from our lives. And since we’re not spending as much time these days with the crew at bridge or poker games, the pool hall or Saturday morning running group because we’re working, we’re led to believe we can look to our boss to give it to us. To read the articles that seem to grow exponentially in the business literature, from popular magazines and blogs to respected business journals, the list of things we expect from our boss could only be delivered by a superhero. To paraphrase Mrs. Paroo from The Music Man, “there’s not a (boss) alive who could hope to measure up to that blend of Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat, and Noah Webster you’ve concocted for yourself…”

Affirmation and praise. Your boss is employed to get a job done, not to make you feel good. It’s his or her job to let you know the expectations for performance and tell you whether or not your results are measuring up. Sometimes that’s affirming and sometimes it’s not. Try to avoid letting your mood and attitude be dictated by the “Happy Face/Sad Face” of feedback from your boss. If there’s a shortfall in your performance, find out quickly what you can do to correct it. If you accomplish something worthwhile, the feeling of satisfaction you give yourself ought to be enough.

Mentoring. The idea of someone regularly watching over you and helping you along is a misguided adaptation of a concept with roots in fanciful literature and magical and unrealistic thinking. Don’t waste time hoping a “beneficent wizard” will appear for you, but look instead for on-the-spot “mentoring moments” from everyone from your boss to his boss, to your peers, someone who reports to you, someone else in the company at any level. Think about what you can contribute to others in that way, too, as well as what you can learn from them.

Empowerment. Nobody can empower you but you. When you are given a job to do, do it. If you run into obstacles, don’t blame the system or your boss or wait to be rescued. Come up with a plan to get around them, and if you need to, let others know how they can help.

Making you happy at work. Nobody can make you happy at work or anywhere else. Don’t confuse happiness (unrealistic) or fun (also unrealistic) with fulfillment, which is a realistic goal at work. Take responsibility for finding meaning in whatever you’re doing. It takes practice and commitment just like any other skill.

There’s an expanding definition out there of what a boss is supposed to do for you. Don’t fall for it. Focus on getting the job done for the company and its customers and see your boss as a living, breathing human being who has important work to do and needs your help to get it done.