Dr. Earl R. Smith II

Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com

According to an investigation of 1,118 people who completed a survey at the Badbossology.com website last year, “48 percent said they would fire their boss if they could, 29 percent would have their boss assessed by a workplace psychologist and 23 percent would send their boss for management training.”

However, what these employees do not realize is how much better their working relationship with their bosses would be if they only had the care and guidance of an executive life coach. These types of coaches are able to show them different ways of dealing with a boss’s managerial habits so that they can have a more productive workday. In order to help executives, an life coach will help their client to determine why they have a ‘bad boss’.

Even though there are CEO’s, Chairman’s, and other members of corporate management who come across as being mean and unfair, they usually do not mean to be so. If you dig a little deeper, you will see that, in some circumstances, they have disastrous personal relationships and are extremely unhappy. All they can do really is to dominate and bully the people who work under them.

However, the rest of these ‘bad bosses’ probably do not mean it either. These corporate managers often are good people who are just doing a bad job at being a manager. Sadly, these executives actually often think that they themselves are the epitome of good leadership.

Understanding how your well-intentioned boss has gone off track can certainly help you choose the best strategy for managing him or her. A few strategies that an executive life coach could discuss with you are:

• Find out what your manager’s goals and objectives are.
• Study the company politics – but do not get too involved as this could ruin your career down the road. Just learn enough for you to be able to understand your manager’s position. Remember, company politics involves relationships, trust, power, persuasion, and influence. Build networks and coalitions, especially if you are trying to influence significant change.
• Your Executive Life Coach will teach you how to set up your top three to five goals. Get your boss’s input and adjust accordingly. Meet regularly with both your boss and your Coach to review your progress and perhaps re-adjust the priorities.
• With the help of your Executive Coach, create a list of priorities and run it by your boss. When the boss comes to you with urgent new priorities, pull out your list and ask where those fit in and which should be deemphasized or moved off your list.
• Try to focus the majority of your work energy on those things that are within your control. Carefully pick areas or changes you would like to influence and then learn to let go of those things or circumstances over which you have no control. Your personal Executive Life Coach will show you exactly how to do this.

Remember that no matter how horrible your boss is, you should never, under any circumstances, badmouth or put down your boss to your co-workers. Even if you know they are agree and sympathize with you. Your Personal Executive Coach can assist you in making a list of your boss’s greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses to see if there are ways in which you can build upon the strengths and reduce the weaknesses.

Attempt to improve on your own credibility with not only your immediate superior but with the whole of Corporate Management. As any great Personal Executive Coach will tell you: The single biggest source of your personal credibility with your boss is meeting your commitments. So always try to do exactly what it that you say you are going to do. Enlist the aid of a Personal Executive Coach and you will be amazed at how quickly it is to really learn how to manage your manager!

© Dr. Earl R. Smith II

~~~~~~~~~~

Related Articles:

• Making the Possible Probable

• Just Couldn’t Bring Himself …

• The Other Side of the Coin

• Improve the Return on Investment in Executive Coaching

• Executive Coaches as Mentors and Advisers

• Retaining High-Value Employees with Executive Coaching

~~~~~~~~~~

Dr. Smith is Managing Partner of The Federal Circle. The Federal Circle partners with teams and existing companies. We help them up their game and win big in the Federal space. We also arrange funding for acquisitions and expansion by acquisition. Our model is based on the belief that, if you select the very best and work with them in a highly professional and focused manner, the results will be truly amazing. He is the author of Amazing Pace: Turbo-charged Business Development – a book that shows how Advisory Boards can dramatically increase revenue. Dr. Smith is also the author of Dream Walk: Parables for the Living – a book of Raven Tales and exploration.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 10:31 AM and is filed under Executive Coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.