Building Good Relations with Managers: Strategies and Tactics, Exercises of Human Resource Management

Download Building Good Relations with Managers: Strategies and Tactics and more Exercises Human Resource Management in PDF only on Docsity! Human Relations– MGMT611 VU © Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan 64 Lesson 21 BUILDING GOOD RELATIONS WITH MANAGERS Skill building approach This topic presents a variety of strategies and tactics aimed at building constructive relationships with your manager. Developing effective relationships with work associates is regarded by many as having good political skills, an interpersonal style that combines awareness of others with the ability to communicate well. Developing a good relationship with your manager or team leader Getting along well with your manager is the most basic strategy for advancement. It must be kept in mind that every organization has its culture. Employees have to adapt themselves according to the culture of the organization. The approaches are grouped into two categories: 1. Creating a favorable impression on your manager or team leader 2. Coping with an intolerable manager 1. Impressing your manager A. Achieve Good Job Performance B. Display a Strong Work Ethic C. Demonstrate Good Emotional Intelligence D. Be Dependable and Honest E. Be a Good Organizational Citizen F. Create a Strong Presence G. Find out What Your Manager Expects of You H. Minimize Complaints I. Avoid Bypassing Your Manager J. Use Discretion in Socializing With Your Manager K. Engage in Favorable Interaction with Your Manager A. Achieve Good Job Performance Good job performance remains the most effective strategy for impressing your manager or team leader. An advanced way of displaying good job performance is to assist your manager with a difficult problem he or she faces. Employees should support their managers when they attempt to introduce the technological change instead of showing resistance. B. Display a Strong Work Ethic A major factor contributing to good job performance is a strong work ethic, a firm belief in the dignity and value of work. Having a strong work ethic is also important for favorably impressing a manager. Six suggestions for demonstrating a strong work ethic are: 1. Work hard and enjoy the task. 2. Demonstrate competence even on minor tasks. 3. Assume personal responsibility for problems. 4. Assume responsibility for free-floating problems. 5. Get your projects completed promptly. 6. Accept undesirable assignments willingly. C. Demonstrate Good Emotional Intelligence A worker who deals effectively with the emotional responses of co-workers and customers is impressive because feelings and emotions are a big challenge on the job. Demonstrating good emotional intelligence is also impressive because it contributes to performing well in the difficult area of dealing with feelings. docsity.com Human Relations– MGMT611 VU © Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan 65 D. Be Dependable and Honest Dependability is a critical employee virtue. If an employee can be counted on to deliver as promised and to be at work regularly, that employee has gone a long way toward impressing the boss. E. Be a Good Organizational Citizen An especially meritorious approach to impressing key people is to demonstrate organizational citizenship behaviour, the willingness to work for the good of the organization even without the promise of a specific reward. The good organizational citizen goes “above and beyond the call of duty.” An effective way of being a good organization citizen is to step outside your job description. If people only do work included in their job description, a mentality of “It’s not my job” pervades. An impressive way of stepping outside your job description is to anticipate problems even when the manager had not planned to work on them. Anticipating problems reflects an entrepreneurial, take-charge attitude. F. Create a Strong Presence A comprehensive approach to impressing your manager or team leader and other key people is to create a strong presence, or keep yourself in the forefront. Get involved in high visibility projects such as launching a new product. Joining a team is effective as is getting involved in community activities of interest to top management. Also, take on tasks your manager dislikes. G. Find out What Your Manager Expects of You You have little chance of doing a good job and impressing your manager unless you know what you are trying to accomplish. Work goals and performance standards represent the most direct way of learning your manager’s expectations. A performance standard is a statement of what constitutes acceptable performance. These standards can sometimes be inferred from a job description. H. Minimize Complaints It is unwise to continually complain about various aspects of the work environment. Aside from being perceived as a pest, listening to complaints takes up considerable management time. A better tactic than frequent complaining is to make constructive suggestions to improve substandard situations. I. Avoid Bypassing Your Manager A good way to embarrass and sometimes infuriate your manager is to repeatedly go to his or her superior with your problems, conflict, and complaints. The bypass suggests that you don’t think your boss has enough power to take care of the problem, and that you distrust his or her judgment. Bypassing your manager is looked upon so negatively that most experienced managers will not listen to your problem unless you have already discussed it with your immediate superior. J. Use Discretion in Socializing With Your Manager Advocates of socializing with the boss contend that off-the-job friendships lead to more natural work relationships. However, socializing with the boss can lead to role confusion, or being uncertain about what role you are carrying out. K. Engage in Favorable Interaction with Your Manager A study of interactions between bank employees and their supervisors showed that trying to create a positive impression on the superior led to better performance ratings. 2. Coping with a problem manager A problem manager is the one who, gets angry easily, intimidate, ignore the requests or is overly committed. Difficult people create obstacles to getting the job done. Employees experience unnecessary stress or are limited in completing tasks because of a problem manager. Dealing with Difficult People gives employees strategies and tactics for dealing with and even positively confronting difficult people about their behaviours to make suggestions for working together better. docsity.com