Book Excerpt: Lead Your Boss

In an edited excerpt from his new book, Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up, John Baldoni advises middle managers how to think like a boss

By John Baldoni

Leadership depends upon persuasion. You need to give a reason for people to believe in what you stand for. Politicians do this in public; corporate types do it behind closed doors. What they do is present their ideas, backed by themselves and their organizations, in the hope that people will follow. Politicians get tested every election; corporate types get measured by performance in the capital markets. The challenge for both is to present their ideas in such a compelling way that people not only want to believe, they carry them to fruition. That's how you get results.

Effective leaders use all the classic communication techniques to sell their plan. Their playbook is instructive to any strategic communicator.

KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING

Accuracy is critical when presenting a new idea. If you are a proposing a new product, process, or service, know how it will benefit the company financially (improving the bottom line) as well as performance wise (improving work conditions). Be certain to include the competition in your analysis. Companies, like ideas, do not operate within a vacuum.

PRESENT THE BIG IDEA

Aspiration is essential to leadership. Twentieth-century presidents learned to think big from Theodore Roosevelt—big grin, big words, big stick, big accomplishments. Roosevelt's leadership positioned our nation to take its first steps on the world stage, and we haven't taken a back row seat since. CEOs who want to change must similarly think big and act as if they are big enough to tackle the job. What they say and how they say it does much to frame the right response. Entrepreneurs from Henry Ford to Bill Gates or Sam Walton to Howard Schultz have spun their visions into products that have captured the imagination of huge majorities of consumers and even better captured their patronage.

Those in charge do not do the doing; they supervise the process. While that is very rewarding, it is a distancing of oneself from the action. So get involved. Take an active role in strategic planning. Ask many questions. Visit with customers. Glean their ideas for improvement. Feed it back to the strategy team. And then follow through.

LEVERAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS

Your greatest allies may be the people to whom you sell and serve—your customers. If you frame your idea in terms of what they are asking for, you will stand a better chance of being heard. By adopting your customers' point of view, you become their advocate. You champion what you think and hope is good for them. Such an argument applies to internal customers, too.

KEEP PUSHING

Too many good ideas are forfeited the first time someone says no. That is a shame because often the first no is a good indication that you might be onto something good. Find out why the idea was rejected. Perhaps you need to make an adjustment in the idea, add some new element, or combine it with another idea from someone else. You will never know unless you persist in your ideas. If you keep pushing, sooner or later your tenacity will win you some points, as long as you are earnest, courteous, and in keeping with corporate strategies. In other words, your idea might not fly, but your career will. Organizations need leaders who do not buckle at the first obstacle; adversity is a marvelous teacher.

Assert Yourself Diplomatically

Assertiveness may be one of the most talked about topics in leadership style. Managers on the way up want to make certain that they are "assertive enough," while those at the top or near the top are sometimes advised to be "less assertive." Assertiveness by definition is the net outcome of acting like a leader—that is, giving people a reason to believe in your abilities to decide, to act, and to lead others. Assertive leaders are confident as well as decisive; they radiate power and seem in total control. That's the good side.

Sometimes too much assertiveness, like too much octane, leads to the "my way or the highway" attitude that instead of bringing people together drives them away.

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