By Barbara Moyes
A major reason why people leave their jobs is because they don’t get on with their boss. So coaching employees in how to work more effectively with their boss is a win/win: it reduces their stress, and it makes economic sense for their organisation, too
Clients who don’t gel with their manager tend to want the boss to change. But that’s the wrong place to start. As Gabarro and Kotter said, “If the relationship between you and your boss is rocky, then it is you who must begin to manage it.”
This means helping clients to:
develop a good understanding of their boss and themselves, especially regarding strengths, weaknesses, work styles and needs, and use this information to develop an effective working relationship.
So how can the coach do this?
Using MBTI to deepen understanding
I have found MBTI to be extremely valuable in helping clients gain a deeper understanding of themselves and of the way their bosses prefer to work. On a simple level, it can help a client learn how to understand and work effectively with a manager who has a very different set of preferences.
Differences between people with a clear Judging (J) and those with a clear Perceiving (P) preference perhaps cause the most difficulty. ‘Js’ can despair of working for ‘P’ bosses, who seem constantly to change the goalposts during a project, as new ideas catch their attention.
‘Ps’, on the other hand, can find working for a ‘J’ boss restrictive, believing that important and interesting considerations might
be ignored in the drive to complete the task.
Their different attitudes to meeting deadlines can also cause difficulties. ‘Js’ take a systematic approach and plan things methodically from the start, while ‘Ps’ often prefer to plunge in with little planning, and rely on the adrenalin of a looming deadline to enable them to complete the task at
the eleventh hour.
Using the style compass
Coaches can build on this by using MBTI as a basis for their clients to develop their own style compass
(see Figure 1; Owen, 2006).
The compass enables clients to identify their own and their boss’s key behavioural characteristics, and see how well they fit together.
This is how it works:
Ask your client to identify the key aspects of their boss’s working style.
Start with the general MBTI preferences (like whether they are big picture or detail people, extravert or introvert, early planners or pressure prompted), and broaden out into characteristics that strike them about their manager’s style (see Table 1 for ideas.)
Ask them to draw a compass, with zero at the centre and 10 at the outer edge of the lines
Mark how far along the line their boss exhibits each, and then join the marks
Then, on the same compass, ask them to draw where they fall on the same lines. This enables clients to map their own style onto their managers.
You can then ask your client:
– Where do you overlap?
– Where are the gaps?
– What can you learn about how to support your manager?
– What can you learn about how to influence your manager?
– Where might tensions or misunderstandings arise?
– How big a stretch is it for you to flex your style?
– What are you going to do now?
Benefits
Gathering this information encourages clients to deepen their understanding of their boss in a non-judgmental way, and can increase their empathy.
Putting it on paper helps them feel more in control, minimises their sense of themselves as victim and builds resilience. When clients consider the style compass alongside what their boss is trying to achieve, it enables them to stop ‘flying blind’, as they see where misunderstandings and problems arise.
Fatal flaws
Some clients react against MBTI because they think it stereotypes people
Sometimes MBTI Step 1 isn’t enough to understand seeming anomalies in a client’s preferences. MBTI Step 2 is needed
The style compass works well for clients with a visual preference. It might not suit clients with auditory or kinaesthetic preferences as well.
Learning points
Give clients hope they can survive difficult relationships with their boss
Help them not to see themselves as victims
Do not collude with the good client/bad boss; encourage clients to see their bosses as people with their own challenges, strengths and weaknesses
See the issue as a relationship one and encourage clients to observe their boss’s behaviour to pick up clues, and to be sensitive to their boss’s work style. Clients need to keep doing this as priorities and concerns change in time
Realise that their bosses are probably not going to change much – the issue is more how far the client can flex for a satisfactory working relationship
Increase clients’ self-awareness about their strengths, weaknesses and styles
Increase clients’ awareness of what they do that impedes and also facilitates working with their boss, and use this as the basis of an action plan to build a more effective relationship.
Coaching at Work, Volume 9, issue 1