Love them or hate them, our bosses are a huge factor in our happiness and success at work. That’s bad news if yours doesn’t seem to be in your corner, and while there’s nothing you can do to make a terrible manager into a fantastic one, there are a few things you can try to get your boss invested in you.
(Photo Credit: Kumar Appaiah/Flickr)
1. Be positive.
“(Most) everybody in the office probably likes you,” writes Whitson Gordon at Lifehacker. “But you can use a few tricks to make yourself even more likable to those around you, including your boss. That means avoiding negative body language, picking your battles, and even dressing the part. This doesn’t mean you have to be a suck up — just keep in mind that you want to give off more positive signals than negative ones.”
2. Do your job.
It might seem like it goes without saying, but the best way you can get the boss to like you more is to do what you’re supposed to do — your job — as well as you possibly can. All the charm in the world won’t help you if you don’t meet that very basic requirement.
3. Give as much as you take, if not more.
Don’t be the person who’s always asking the boss for favors, whether it’s more vacation time, an early day, or a different project. Sure, you’ll need his help at some point — part of a manager’s job is to give workers what they need to do their jobs well, and sometimes that’s an afternoon off to go see the school play.
But make sure you give back more than you get. If your boss starts to associate your face with an endless stream of one-sided favors, you’re not going to wind up on her list of favorite people.
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