| Your boss is so important to your success.
The saying "You only get one chance to make a first impression" may be the most important thing when dealing with your boss. The only place your boss might not be important is if their manager doesn't like them so being associated with them could hurt you. You have limited time to impress them and once you fail your screwed as a confirmation bias is formed. There's little you can do to change their opinion. One thing to do is be a step ahead of your boss. Think of it like a chess game. What are there possible moves and how will you respond to them? Anticipate what they want you to do and do it before you're told. The best way is to listen to the questions they ask you and others. Collect these questions or rules they have somewhere and before you meet with them, see what questions they'll ask and how you would answer them. Set up a schedule to check these questions. Do it at least once a day possibly each hour. Have a dashboard that their questions are constantly answered. Make a game out of it. Make sure to listen to what the boss tells you both verbally and non-verbally. Today I missed an 8 am Monday morning meeting. I was so focused on the 9 AM meeting that I never was aware of the 8 Am one. This leads to the rule: Check for meetings the next day the night before. This could be a habit, alarm or process. It's needed once in a while. So think about what your boss is worried about. What keeps her up at night? What do you do that she doesn't like? Does she see the value you bring? What is your boss about to ask you to do? What skills do you have to work on? My boss told me straight out that I need to respond to emails within a day. This gives me the rule: Check your emails each hour Here are some general questions to be prepared to answer, but cater them to your specific boss. Use the 5WH (Who, What, Where, When, Why, How) to generate questions they'll ask you: |