This archive report was first published on 1 November 2019.
It's been six weeks since I joined my new company, and I'm still trying to figure out what my boss expects of me. The irony is that I'm supposed to be managing my boss, but it turns out that's trickier than I thought.
Our company has a workshop every year to discuss plans for the next year. This year's workshop was held last week, and I was told that I had 15 minutes to present my plans for 2020. However, I had hardly spent any time formulating my plans, and all I had been trying to do was learn as much as possible.
I reached out to Ken, a colleague, for help. He suggested that I take a look at what we did last year, pick a few buzzwords, and I'd be good to go. However, I had to ask him where I could find the information, and he told me that I must have been taken through our records management system during my induction. Unfortunately, I had no induction, and I've been learning on the go.
Ken's advice was useful, but it also made me realize that I needed to get my induction process sorted out. I decided to take advantage of my boss's presence by walking into his office and asking him about my expectations. He told me that I was doing fine and that I didn't need to worry.
However, I remembered Ken's words of caution, and I asked my boss to book some time in his diary so that we could discuss my expectations and develop a proper dashboard. He agreed, and we had a chat later that afternoon.
During our chat, my boss revealed that he was planning to leave the company soon, but he was being held back by the company's reluctance to pay him off. He also gave me three key objectives to achieve, but he told me that all I needed to know was that I needed to make him look good to the bosses always.
As I walked out of the office, I felt that managing my boss was going to be harder than I imagined.
