DCT30082013: Never outshine your boss, openly!
DAILY CAREER TIP 30/08/2013
One of the easiest ways to career slide is outshining your boss, especially in public. Sometimes, you know more than your boss in some – and sometimes all – aspects of the work you do. Don’t present yourself as knowing more than your boss. If a question is not directed specifically at you, but to your unit/department/company, and you and your boss are both around to answer the question, scan the body language and possibly eye contact of your boss before responding. Let your trained brain process the thought whether you think you or your boss are in the best position to answer the question. If you observe you know the answer, and your boss doesn’t know, try to cover your boss. After your boss, has talked, don’t say what he said is not correct, you may come in with something like, “Just in addition to what he said…..blabla”, even though what your boss earlier was totally off-the-mark. And be sure, he was not playing with the fact for ‘political’ reasons, or deliberately holding back information. You may find yourself in soup if you go say something that your boss knew but think it is tactically right not to say it at that point.
This is very important. Your boss is your boss, even if you know more than him. Study him, respect him. Run things by him before taking critical decisions. Don’t present yourself in other units of the organization as Mr. Know-All and your boss as dumbhead. If both of you are together, say in a meeting or presentation, never make your voice louder than his, or present yourself as being on top of the job more than your boss, except he expressly gives you free hands.
It is now noted as I shall one day get there,being under a boss.