People Don’t Leave Jobs - They Leave Bosses

More than 1 million employees can't be wrong...

A Gallup poll of more 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that the number one reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss. "People leave managers not companies. In the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue," Gallup wrote in its survey findings.

What is your boss like? Use the free BossRater to find out which Game of Thrones Character Your Boss is.

Bad Bosses Can Cause Unhappy and Unhealthy Workplaces

If you’ve got a bad boss right now then I can truly sympathize with you. You might have a great job in an awesome company but a bad boss can ruin all of that. A bad boss will:

  • Make you feel undervalued,

  • Suck the motivation from your soul and

  • Make you wonder whether you should be looking for a new job

More importantly, a bad boss is bad for your health. Studies show that working for a bad boss increases your chance of having a heart attack by as much as 50%.

Don’t replace one problem with another. If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with

Let’s face it, not many bosses get trained how to be good bosses which is why so many people have bad bosses. The problem is that this also means that if you leave, you’re just as likely to end up replacing one problem with another. So before you decide to chuck it all in it makes sense to take one last chance to rethink how you can better manage the boss you already have.

I’m a big fan of self-empowerment and I believe we don’t have to accept bad bosses, we can take control of managing our relationship with our boss by managing up.

Manage Your Relationship With Your Boss

A bad relationship with your boss can make your work life miserable. A bad relationship with your boss can also jeopardize your chances for promotion or send you to the unemployment line. But there are steps that you can take to manage the single most important work relationship you have,

Take a minute to ask yourself:

  • Do you know what exact deliverables your boss wants from you?

  • Do you know what your boss’s goals and objectives are?

  • Do you meet regularly with your boss (at least once a week) to tell them what you’re working on and give them status updates?

  • Do you know your boss’s preferred communication style?

If you answered mostly “NO” to the above then it’s a sign that you don’t have to accept a bad boss, you can take charge of your destiny and start managing up - start managing your relationship with your boss. Tip: weekly one on one meetings with your boss are a the best place to start building a better relationship with your boss. That's why I've created a free mini-course to show you how to have high quality one on one meetings with your boss. Click here to register (includes a free one on one form and one on one meeting agenda plus tips to manage upwards)

You can find out more about how you can manage your relationship with your boss by using the BossRater. The BossRater is a fun assessment that tells you which Game of Thrones character your boss is. But there’s a serious side too, because after the rating, you will get proven techniques to manage your relationship with your boss.

The mission of Manager Foundation is to make work a better place by improving self-awareness, communication and relationships. The BossRater will help you identify weak points and potential pitfalls in your relationship with your boss. It will also tell you what you can do to improve your relationship and work better with your boss.

Comments:

Do you have any stories, questions, tips or comments about managing your relationship with your boss? Do you have any tips to manage upwards? Help the rest of us out by sharing in the comments below.

Boss Camp

If you think about it, the job of a Boss is to get people to do stuff. But getting people to do what you want must be one of the toughest things in the world. That’s why WWW.BOSS.CAMP is about making managing easy in just an hour a week. The program includes topics such as:

  • How to hire for performance,
  • How to motivate employees,
  • What are bad employee motivators,
  • What you must do as a manager but isn't on your job description,
  • How leaders get power.