Managing Up in Uncertain Times

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In her Candid Conversation, Mary Abbajay, author of Managing Up: How to Move up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss, shared a helpful guide to better understanding bosses as well as gave us strategies, tips, and techniques to succeed in these uncertain times—both as an employee and an employer/manager.

When speaking about her managing up essentials, Mary said this, "There are three steps. The first step is learning our boss's work style, really pay attention to how she works, pay attention to his preferences. Pay attention to their priorities, their pet peeves. This means we should take a good hard look at who our boss really is, not who we wish they were, but who they really are and how they prefer to operate. We don't want to judge them. You just want to notice. The minute we start judging other people, whether they're your boss, significant other, colleague, we get trapped by our amygdala if we're judging them negatively. Once we get trapped by our reptile brain, we case to be strategic as we could be. 

Then the second step is you're going to have to notice how you like to operate. Be honest with yourself. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your own preferences, priorities, pet peeves? I don't want you to judge yourself either. This is about developing great self-awareness about how you like to operate. Once you have a good look at who your boss is, and who you are, then you get to access the gap. In that gap, you get to choose how you want to adapt. You get to choose how you want to create, work, react and interact with that person. We can't control that person. We can't change that person. You can always request how you want to be treated. But, when we can't get control, we can actually get control by understanding what we have power over. What we have power over is our own choices." 

Watch Mary's full Candid Conversation!

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