It’s time to manage up and express your needs and expectations to your boss. We often sit back and assume that our boss has all of the answers and that they know how to be a good leader. The reality is that they most likely have never received leadership training. We essentially set them up to fail in leadership positions. That’s why most leaders are solely comfortable with the “task management” part of the job and they completely ignore the “people management” aspect.

Recognizing this is a great first step to hopefully ease some frustration. Until companies start recognizing the importance of widespread leadership development, the onus for managing what you need and expect is going to fall largely on the employee. That being said, hearing your needs/expectations can make leaders uncomfortable – for many reasons. One reason is that they don’t know what to do with the information. Let’s work on developing leaders!