Work with — not for — your boss

By Carol Kleiman
Chicago Tribune

Partnering with your boss, forming a powerful alliance.

They are the newest buzzwords in career counseling today.

Your boss is looking for someone who is on track with his or her goals. Bosses want employees who are partners, people dedicated to reaching the same goals that they are after, employees willing to work as hard as they do to get the job done. This article is designed to help you learn how to manage your boss and increase your chances for career success.

Partnering with your boss is far more appealing than being an unquestioning, obedient underling. And while being a team player has long been endorsed by management experts, working as a team member — on close to an equal footing with the person you report to — is a newer concept.

Working FOR somebody implies a lack of power, but a partnership suggests power and mutual respect. And that's why so many in-the-know people are hopping on the "equal status" bandwagon.

Hopefully, many of them are bosses.

"Your boss is the single most important person who controls when, how and where your career will take you within your company," according to Candy Deemer and Nancy Fredericks, co-authors of "Dancing on the Glass Ceiling" (Contemporary Books, $21.95). The authors direct their words to women who feel stymied in career advancement, but I believe their advice applies to both women and men who want success in their professions.

"If you doubt the career-building power of a positive relationship with your boss, just look around at the people who are clearly on the fast track to the higher ranks of management in your company," Deemer and Fredericks write. "Are they the most intelligent or the most knowledgeable? Not always. Maybe not ever. But they almost always are the smartest when it comes to creating positive relationships with their superiors.

"Fast trackers know that if they support their boss, their boss will support them."

Their advice for getting the boss in your corner is this: Work with your boss as a team, think positive, think like your boss and speak and show your support of your boss.

While I strongly believe that seminars and books on the subject of creating an equal playing field with your boss offer vital information toward achieving that goal, I have some additional suggestions, some inside tips, on the nitty-gritty of how to partner with your boss — ones that no one else ever mentions but are guaranteed to put you on the partnership track:

• Join the same golf or health club as your boss.
• Cover up for her/his long lunches.
• Do all the work your boss is supposed to do — and then type everything up, no matter what your title is, because it seems no boss ever knows how to type.

If you follow these tips, in no time your boss will be calling you, "Pardner."