So You Think Your Boss Must Be Crazy…

This is often a new-employee experience, yet all of us are susceptible to having moments when our boss or leader appears to make irrational decisions. We think, “That can’t possibly be good for the organization.” But consciously we know people are rational decision-makers (most of the time), so what is going on?

The first primary error we make is to view leaders as altruistic experts who will always consider how their decisions could impact people many levels below their view. Unfortunately, strategic, organization-wide decisions often don’t carefully take into consideration the impact on individuals and groups. What is good for the organization is not always good for you.

The second error we make is assuming leaders will prioritize the organization over their own ambitions/needs. Research has shown that this just isn’t the case; many of us use the lens of our personal needs to influence what we believe is good for the organization, expecting we and the organization can both benefit. Example: A leader keeps several poor performing subordinates and allows high performers to leave. In organizations/units where performance metrics are not driving decisions or are difficult to measure, leaders often use other, more subjective metrics to prioritize team members, like loyalty, common vision, comfort, etc.

Whatever the reason, working in situations wherein you just don’t understand your boss, or feel unable to accept his/her decisions, can become difficult. If leaving isn’t an option, here are a few tips to gaining a better understanding — and thereby not being surprised by your boss’ decisions. (This information is primarily based on the work of Francois Dupuy, who, for decades, was a leading consultant on organizational leader behavior.)

1. Listening skills. The first improvement you can make concerns your listening skills. People often filter information based on what we need to know to solve our own problems. However, if you start to listen with the goal to understand how those above you might be learning/interpreting information, you might see information in different ways. Obviously, you won’t be privy to all the information higher ups receive, but much of it is available to you, if you decide earning your supervisors’ perspective becomes important.

2. Goals. Avoiding the second error mentioned above is critical toward understanding your boss’ goals and/or what problems he/she is trying to solve. Are you really surprised to think bosses may be more concerned about their own future (promotions, pay raises, safety, family needs, etc.) than yours…or the organization’s long-term plans? Listen closely, and you will likely learn what problems your boss is actually trying to solve.

3. Resources/Constraints. None of us lives in a vacuum, and that goes double for senior leaders. They must also answer to the influences of people above and around them, and how they respond to those expectations is often determined by their ability to leverage resources (time, people, knowledge, skills, etc.) and deal with constraints (authority, influence, access, bias, etc.) within their sphere of control. Leaders can sometimes impose resource limitations and action constraints on themselves. But whether real or self-imposed, resource and constraint guardrails control how leaders go about achieving their goals.

4. Strategy/Behavior. How your bosses behave — the decisions/actions they make regarding the organization and its people — can be described as their “strategy.” Now, strategy might be difficult term to accept for what you are witnessing. We often think of strategy as a thorough plan, but what is described here resembles a haphazard, survival scenario. But taking your bosses’ goals together with their resources/constraints, you should begin to see their strategy as a rational series of decisions toward achieving their desired outcomes.

Of course, even after practicing these tips, you still may struggle to accept decisions and actions that appear detrimental (to yourself or even the organizational as a whole). But if you can understand what strategy your boss is using to solve their problems, you’ll have a better chance of aligning (or, at least, not directly conflicting) your strategy with theirs. Taking this to the next level, if you want to see your boss’ strategy change, start realizing where you can add to their resources (can you do more in a different way?) or help to remove a constraint that allows your boss achieve his/her goals in a different way!

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So You Think Your Boss Must Be Crazy… was originally published in Horizon Performance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.