Can You Manage Your Boss
Bosses are one of the most significant factors within any given organization. Therefore, all employees are supposed to be obedient and loyal to their bosses so as create a humble working environment. This is because your boss can sack you and hire another person if he feels that you are not obeying him/her.
Therefore, it is of great significance that after you are hired, you should learn on how to manage you’re your boss. You should know his/her likes, dislikes, weaknesses and strength. It is after knowing these that you will be in a good position to manage your boss by not doing what he/she dislike and doing whatever he likes. In the case study, the author of brings to light the problem of to manage your boss. He begins by telling us through Larry some of the weakness that bosses have or what can create problems between subordinates and bosses.
In the case study, Larry- a subordinate is highly educated, skilled and knows how to do his work (Tulgan, 2010). Larry has been working under Pete Webster for four years. Nevertheless, he encounters several problems for instance, Webster- his boss, was a pain in every part of his body, from top to toe. Webster never says or has an encouraging word but he only has grunts and criticism. For instance Larry was slaved on the memoranda and reports he sent up to Webser’s office and then he never heard anything regarding them.
According to Tulgan (2010), Larry ensured that he was in Webster’s office every morning with something significant or called him on 8:30 sharp. Webster, Larry’s boss had drilled this into him when he started as a manufacturing engineer. Yet Webster acted as if Larry has broken the entire Ten Commandments whenever he knocked at the door and ask whether he should enter inn. What have you to see me about again, he would growl. He would ask but if Larry doesn’t tell him to the last detail of every single thing that was taking place and particularly bad news a head, he would bite his head off.
It is also difficult to manage your boss especially if he/she didn’t finish high school. While Larry is a highly educated fellow with a BA and an MA in mechanical engineering from MIT, Webster, his boss had joined army at the end of his junior year in high school and then started as a mechanist when he came back from the service (Stellman, 2006). Probably, he could not follow the simplest weakening analysis thus making Larry to overwork. Not that Larry was completely unable to manage his boss, he decided to leave. Stellman (2006) stipulates that on a Sunday evening when Larry he had worked at home on a careful study of order patterns and productionn schedules that summed up to a recommendation to change production scheduling, inventory control, and shipping schedules for all four plants of the metalworking divisions, he realized that he had made a correct decision.
However, due to the fact that Larry was not able to manage his boss, he realized suddenly when he was about to put the pages of his research together for the next day that there was absolutely no need of showing the work to Webster. This was due to the fact that he was not going to understand.Larry decided to find another job which he found though with difficulty. Even though the job was not that big and not paid well compared to his previous job, the company was highly technological one and Larry’s management science was appreciated fully. A lot of his associate held PHDs hence making Larry to be somewhat undereducated (Stellman, 2006).
When Larry went to tell Webster that he was leaving, Webster says that it is a relief because he would not have been promoted no matter what. Leaving of Larry made Webster to appoint Frank as the new plant manager who would take Larry’s position. This shocked Larry because he didn’t expect this to happen. However, frank asked Larry words of advice and which he was given. These words enabled Frank to manage his boss and even took Webster’s position.
