Supporting your manager
Featured in the Partnerships at Work training manual
By Ken Birkett & Val Rowland
Category: Performance Management
Credit price: 3 download credits (Single user)
Working well as a duo presents an interesting and maybe crucial challenge to team members and managers. Doing it well enhances the success and career prospects of both. Starting with the assumption that a boss is doing their best to develop a working relationship, what can the team member do? Being competent, hardworking and co-operative is just reaching first base. To progress from achieving the basics, someone has to make working successfully with the boss a particular and ongoing project. A key aspect of this will be the extent to which they are able to give practical support to the boss. As with any other project, working successfully with the boss needs a bit of strategy and direction. One approach is to analyse their strengths and weaknesses and compare them with your own; define your boss’s aims for your work-section; consider what the boss needs from you to achieve them; and do your bit towards providing the most effective combination of your joint skills. The boss, too, has responsibilities towards optimising strengths. Bosses should ensure that everyone can contribute to their maximum; and recognise that subordinates can be more effective in some areas than they can be themselves. If this type of philosophy is in play, you are unlikely to hear a boss say, ‘My people don’t support me.’ Conversely, you are unlikely to hear a subordinate say, ‘My boss prefers to go it alone.’ A most effective boss/subordinate team is one where both recognise the advantages of the association with the other, and work together in a manner that brings fulfilment.
This training activity begins with a brief introduction to the topic of supporting your manager. Participants work privately on a questionnaire analysing both their manager’s and their own characteristics. There is a discussion on how someone might use their data to make their partnership with their manager more effective. Participants work, alone initially, on a further questionnaire to see themselves and their manager within the context of the work-section. They then pair up with another participant and discuss the implications of the answers, and how they personally might offer improved support to their manager. There follows a feedback and group discussion.
Who is it for: This training activity is intended for use by trainers to illustrate to participants the need for supporting their managers by deciding how to use both their strengths to mutual advantage.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 6 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 01:25:00 |
| No of Pages: | 17 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training activity is for use by trainers in team building, leadership and personal development training.
Download the training activity, Supporting your manager as featured in the Fenman training manual; Partnerships at Work