I was recently asked for some helpful advice when it comes to successfully navigating the often precarious and frustrating waters of working under multiple managers. Having more than one boss can make work, well...interesting sometimes.
People can be as different as night and day, at the office and in our personal lives. All managers don’t manage the same way. Different leaders have different leadership styles. This isn’t a bad thing. After all, different styles of leadership and management enrich the corporate culture.
Where things can get tricky, is when you receive conflicting or mixed messages from your leadership. For example, one manager may perceive a particular project, goal, or customer to be priority over another. This point of view however, may be a complete 180 from the direction you were given by another manager.
Receiving conflicting messages from multiple managers can have an adverse impact on you doing your job effectively. It’s kind of like what happens to a car when its wheels are out of alignment. Instead of traveling straight, the car may pull to the right side or the left.
So - what can you do to ensure that you’re able to do your job effectively when competing messages are being communicated by management?
Conflict Can Be An Opportunity For Growth
One
of the most overlooked opportunities for positive change is conflict.
We miss the great things about conflict because for one...it has a
pretty bad wrap. And let’s face it, there are all kinds of negative
connotations for it. Words like - “confrontation"; “clash”;
“disruption”; “struggle”; “strife”; “combat”; “fray”. None of those
words really paint the picture that you’re having a good day, right?
Countless books have been written about how to prevent conflict; about how to manage it; about what steps to take to resolve conflict when it does occur. And all of these things are very important, but there’s much more to conflict than what’s on the surface; than simply addressing what happened. Consider this..
Conflict has the potential to facilitate much needed change and fundamental growth because the very presence of conflict let’s us know that something isn’t as it should be; it let’s us know where changes and improvements need to be made...improvements that are probably long overdue. And if we’re being honest, most of us don’t pay attention to underlying issues or problems until they make their way to the surface...until they have a direct impact on something. And when issues make their way to the surface, we’re forced to do something about it.
Countless books have been written about how to prevent conflict; about how to manage it; about what steps to take to resolve conflict when it does occur. And all of these things are very important, but there’s much more to conflict than what’s on the surface; than simply addressing what happened. Consider this..
Conflict has the potential to facilitate much needed change and fundamental growth because the very presence of conflict let’s us know that something isn’t as it should be; it let’s us know where changes and improvements need to be made...improvements that are probably long overdue. And if we’re being honest, most of us don’t pay attention to underlying issues or problems until they make their way to the surface...until they have a direct impact on something. And when issues make their way to the surface, we’re forced to do something about it.
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