20 Ways to Impress the Boss

Whether you're vying for a promotion or just want to make a good impression, here are 20 ways to show you're dream team material: 

1. Know the mission. Align yourself with your boss' and company's goals and values. Make your boss' priorities your priorities. 

2. Understand how you'll be evaluated. Know precisely which skills, behaviors and accomplishments you will be judged on and rewarded. Focus on them like a laser. 

3. Be dependable. Do what you say you're going to do. Better yet, under-promise and over-deliver. 

4. Project positive energy. Don't be the one to whine or criticize the boss or company direction. Be a motivator: the person everyone wants to be around.

5. Make your boss look good. Finish your work on time and with a high level of professionalism. Bring your boss ideas that will help him and the department and offer to take charge and implement them.

6. Own up. Take responsibility for your mistakes by focusing on what you've learned rather than what you've done wrong. For example, "I think this project could have been better if we'd gotten the group's buy-in early on," or "Next time I would talk more with the end-users up-front..."

7. Be organized. Plan your next day before you leave work. Rank your tasks by urgency and importance and make a point of doing at least the top two items on your list.

8. Be punctual. Arriving for work or meetings on time (even early) shows you're enthusiastic, dependable and able to manage your life effectively.

9. Be resourceful. Don't run to the boss with every question you have or setback you encounter. Think things through first. If you must report a problem to the boss, develop possible solutions to present.

10. Broaden your horizons. Take advantage of company-sponsored training courses and volunteer for projects in areas outside your everyday expertise.

11. Stay informed. Keep abreast of industry and company trends by reading trade journals and attending professional association events.

12. Be trendy. Stay current with technological, legal and knowledge advances in your area. Upgrade your skills and learn new ones.

13. Be courteous. Show respect and loyalty to your boss and speak well of her to others. (At the very least don't bad mouth her to anyone.)

14. Be flexible. Change is inevitable. Companies need people who can adapt and go with the flow.

15. Take care of your health. When you're run-down, productivity and ambition suffer -- as does your image.

16. Leave your personal life at the door. Using your co-workers as therapists not only hurts productivity; it damages your credibility and can contaminate your work relationships (even if people seem sympathetic).

17. Go beyond the call of duty. Take on added challenges, put in extra hours, and never use the phrase, "That's not in my job description."

18. Be a team player. Show your boss and co-workers you have their best interests at heart by being empathetic and offering to help out when they need it.

19. Take a break now and then. A clear head and balanced life can give you energy and perspective.

20. Look and act promotable. Don't let anyone think you work because you have to.

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By  Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder Editor

What makes a good boss? (CNN opinion) ..

Bosses get a pretty bad rap. Where two or more employed people gather, you're sure to hear a story that involves the word "boss" and one of the following descriptors: "stupid," "dumb," "incompetent" or "clueless." Turn on the TV or go to the movies and bosses don't fare much better. They're either bumbling fools or conniving villains.

Bad bosses exist. We all know that. You can easily list all the qualities a bad boss possesses without having to think too much. But what makes a good boss? I'm not talking about the fanciful daydreams we have about a boss who wants to pay us seven figures for working one hour a day.

To find out, we asked employees about the best bosses they've had and what characteristics they hope to see in the people for whom they work.

Give and take
When freelance videographer Joe Vass describes the best boss he ever worked for, all of the qualities boil down to showing respect, a characteristic that many workers value regardless of what industry they're in.

"The best boss I ever had made me feel like a valued and important member of the team not through his words, but through his actions," Vass said. "He encouraged hard work, ingenuity and creativeness and valued everyone for who they were, and so we were inspired to work hard for ourselves and for him. He was always available for consultation and skilled at good, constructive criticism [and] suggestions."

As a result of this approachable and encouraging leadership, the team always recognized the boss as the leader and decision-maker. It was something the team thought he earned from them and didn't demand.

Debra Yergen, a director of marketing for a cardiac hospital, said she recognizes the value of giving to her employees and receiving something in return.

"As a member of the hospital's key management team, there are a lot of responsibilities I have that cannot be delegated," Yergen said. "But whatever I do assign to my staff, I make sure they see me do, too. I also make sure that when my staff works a really long shift one day and sometimes into the night they get rewarded with coming in late another day."

Were she to hand out orders that she herself couldn't do and provide no reward for the times when late hours cut into personal time, she might not have such a positive relationship with her employees.

Flexibility
Wayne Botha of Botha Consulting has learned the valuable of flexibility during his career working with IT project managers.

"The days of IT professionals working nine to five are gone. Project managers work flexible schedules in different time zones from around the world," Botha explains. "Good bosses focus on getting the job done, not on measuring the hours that a subordinate sits in the chair at the office."

The notion of a standard workday is fading for all professions, and life sure hasn't become more rigid. Personal obligations and family responsibilities make strict 9-to-5 work hours just as impossible. Flexibility matters to employees now more than ever.

Flexibility extends beyond handling schedules, though. It also applies to daily operations, reminds Daniel Mark Wheaton, the sales and operations manager for Canuka Web Solutions.

"A good boss is flexible about how things can be done. In being so, he or she opens the possibility of learning ways to do things better. [Of] equal importance is learning what not to do," Wheaton said.

"Flexibility in hiring is important, too. Qualifications and assets in a job posting should be guidelines. A boss should recognize that sometimes relevant work experience is more important than education background."

And so much more
What makes a good boss can't be distilled into one or two adjectives. As employees are eager to explain, good bosses encompass a broad range of qualities that make going to work enjoyable. According to workers, here are other ways bosses can be allies and not enemies:

• "Be consistent and predictable. It is hard for subordinates to make the boss look good when the boss behaves erratically and every situation seems to result in a unique decision." – Botha
• "They are able to get you to do something without using coercive tactics or bullying. They're able to frame the discussion in the same way a good basketball coach tells you what the best play will be." – Andrew Lee, co-founder and CEO of JamLegend.com
• "Promote from within. Develop your subordinates and then promote them when the opportunity arises. Subordinates will quickly understand your intentions when you always hire people from outside your organization for top positions." – Botha
• "A good boss will defend your actions (when they are defensible) and will help you when there is a problem." -- Deborah Graham
• "A good boss understands that every task given to you cannot be your No. 1, top priority and will work with you to readjust priority lists if necessary." – Graham
• "A good boss knows the overall value each employee brings to the organization, and keeps that in mind. So, a single transgression by an otherwise excellent employee doesn't demand the same response as the same transgression by an employee who consistently makes mistakes." – Bruce Campbell, vice president of marketing at Clare Computer Solutions
• "A good boss keeps you informed about what is happening at the higher management levels and what projects might be coming down the road." – Graham

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By Anthony Balderrama, CareerBuilder.com

10 Tips To Become A Better Boss

It's pretty hard, says Bernie Erven, to find someone who says, “I've got good employees, but they've got a lousy boss.” More often, says the Ohio State University professor emeritus in employee and labor management, he hears this complaint: “I don't have any problems. It's my employees.”

The reality, he says, is “You will be about as good a boss as you choose to be.” Your reputation as a boss, and how that reputation influences your relationship with your employees and fellow managers, is the sum of the choices you have made and continue to make.

“Being a better boss is about you and your standards and your choices. It's not about natural ability.”

It is, however, all about being willing to change, he adds, because becoming a better boss is no different than becoming better at anything else: You have to work at it and you have to be willing to learn how to do it differently if what you're doing now isn't working to your satisfaction.

“That's at the heart of being a better boss,” he says. “Can you be a good boss for the next 10 years if you refuse to change? You'll still be on your employees' bad list. Or you won't have any employees at all.”

Here are 10 areas where supervisors can make choices to help their bottom line:

1. Welcome change. “Accept the fact that change is difficult. And so, if you're going to be a leader, what does your own attitude about change have to be? Positive”. Say you want to introduce a new procedure. If you want your employees to change, you've got to give them information about the what, the why and the when. “Some of your very best employees might resist change because they aren't yet persuaded that the change is reasonable, is justifiable, and is worth the risk”. That means employees need the information, but also some time to work it through. They need to be able to ask questions. “So if you're going to welcome change and lead change and help people change over time as part of being a good boss, you've got to allow time. It can't be done in a crisis.”
2. Emphasize communication. Supervising employees is about building relationships, Erven says, and you can't relate if you can't communicate. “The most important single skill that can be learned, practiced, improved and evaluated is communication. You've got to make communication your key to building relationships”. The two most important places bosses can improve are in how they send messages and their ability to listen. Some people are readers; some aren't. “So you've got to know the people you're communicating with.”
3. Have clearly understood procedures, policies and rules. “Is it fair to hire someone, not tell them what the job is, and then criticize them for not doing it well? Absolutely not,” Erven says. “Whatever the critical tasks are, teach the procedures. Leaving employees to figure out how to do what they've been hired to do is a sign of poor leadership. Make procedures understandable, practical and simple. Have clear policies and rules to guide and explain the whys.”
4. Show enthusiasm. “How many of you had a high school coach who announced, ‘We're going to lose all our games, but let's practice anyway’? I'm absolutely convinced that enthusiasm is an invaluable personal characteristic for bosses,” Erven says. “I'm talking about having an interest in your job and I'm talking about if sometimes you have to pretend to be enthusiastic until your bad mood passes, do it. Your employees don't want to know your problems. They want you to be enthusiastic.”
5. Be fair. Consistently enforce rules, Erven says, and in all cases avoid bias, dishonesty and injustice. Doing this means you will be accused of being unreasonable at times, because you will make decisions based on careful reasoning, whereas employees often make decisions based on emotion. It's also wise to separate your personal world from your employee-boss world. “Be friendly with all the people you supervise, but be buddy to none of them,” Erven says.
6. Show empathy. Just because you have to make decisions based on clearly defined policies and procedures doesn't mean you shouldn't empathize with your employees. Empathy, Erven says, is understanding the other person's situation. For example, two people are vying for a promotion and you choose Kendra over Kirk. “Who should get the news first? Kirk. Give him the chance to save face with everybody else by giving him the information first, rather than by learning it from Kendra coming away from your talk with a big smile on her face. That's showing empathy.”
7. Display trust. “Believe in your employee's word, their integrity, their strengths, their assurance,” he says. “In other words, be in a position where you can trust the people around you. To have to say to an employee ‘I don't trust you’ is a damaging relationship.”
8. Continue learning. You will never know all you need to know, he says, and there isn't a supervisor out there who is ready to manage a 2012 business. Many bosses have been supervising people for longer than some of their employees have been alive. “And you don't understand them.” But they're your workforce and you've got to continue learning to be an effective boss.
9. Be flexible. “Adjust your leadership style for each person you supervise,” he suggests. “Delegate as much authority and responsibility as you can. That's part of being flexible.”
10. Envision the success you're working to have. What is your vision for your people? What is your vision for your relationship with them? Having that clearly in mind will make it an easier goal to accomplish.

Grade yourself
Erven suggests supervisors honestly grade themselves on each of these 10 points. “Then ask one of your employees to ask the same thing of everybody you supervise, anonymously. Ask a trusted co-manager or supervisor to give you a grade on each of them.”

Then look at the results. “If you gave yourself an A on communication and everybody else gave you a C, what's that telling you?”

Finally, develop a plan for improving your performance on these 10 items. “What will increase your chances of success? Having specific, measurable goals. And what will also increase your success is a coach, mentor, someone around you who helps you be honest with yourself and see the choices.”

By Brijj.com