your job, your career is entirely in the hands of your boss. he can take you around the world, in a good way, or can put your career in jeopardy if you don’t sell yourself right. remember, in modern organizations, your boss’s success depends on your success. your boss is always looking for someone whom he can promote, because that builds case for his own promotion. so, if your boss is setting high standards that you find hard to meet, don’t hate him because he is only looking for a worthy successor.
you need to trigger the right emotions that will put you in the spotlight in front of your boss. this is not an impossible task, its difficulty may vary according to the position you are at; the higher your designation, the higher the stakes & therefore, more difficult it will be to impress.
5 tips to make your task considerably easier:
1. earn your boss’s trust
- be punctual & be regular so that he doesn’t have to worry every morning if you are going to show up or not. and if you foresee yourself getting late to work on a particular day, inform your boss via text or call asap.
- be available – crisis doesn’t know what time of the day it is or if it’s the weekend. if you do help your boss solve the problem over the weekend or at any unusual working hour you might have just saved your boss’s and the company’s face. just imagine the points it’s going to earn you in the next appraisal.
meetbeat deadlines – average people meet deadlines, few are able to beat them consistently. which group do you want to be a part of?
you need to build trust early on in your relationship. and once you earn that trust level, guard it with all your life! it takes time to build trust, but all can be lost in a matter of seconds.
2. give attention to details
made a brilliant doc or a presentation with extensive research over the weekend but forgot to proofread it before submitting it? you just put all your effort to waste. full stops, commas, spacing, formatting can be the difference in a thumbs up from the boss or a frustrated feedback. attention to details in your work often earns you recognition & the lack of it earns you… nothing!
3. add value to your tasks
usually employees complete the bare minimum in a particular assignment to simply get done with it. few go the extra mile and put efforts to deliver something (relevant) that was more than what the boss asked for. it’s not surprising at all that employees who add value in their work are usually the boss’s favourites.
4. seek additional responsibilities
you need to show intent & in fact nag your boss to get an additional responsibility. if you are engrossed with your routine tasks and are not saving time for additional tasks, your boss would know and will never delegate any extra responsibility. as a result, chances for your growth will be simply none. if you save time to perform additional duties and do well, that’s when you are making a case for promotion as it proves you are capable of more than what has been currently assigned to you.
in a competitive environment, you get promoted only when you are consistently performing over and above your job description.
5. stay updated & spread the knowledge
whatever industry your you work in, there are lots of new developments & trends you can learn about on a daily basis. be the one in your team who shares updates and trends regularly. that helps build your image amongst your peers & the boss as someone who is on top of this game. employees who aren’t updated with the latest trends and developments give out a very negative sentiment; these employees don’t seem passionate about their jobs. if your boss doesn’t see and feel your passion, he is less likely to count on you in the long run.
depending on your designation and the type of boss you have, you might have to do less or more of any of the above mentioned tips – that’s for you to analyze. the quicker you are done analyzing the triggers of your superior, the better.
written by: syed mouhid ather
Photo Credit: http://bit.ly/1TS2gHb