Well not all bosses are bad, most of them are good not only at their work but also at their judgment. If not because these qualities they won't be the boss in the first place; unless they were there due to some kind of big string tied to them.What I am arriving at is that if your boss is the person that has good judgment about where his/her organization and business is heading, then my advice is to stick close with him/her. Treat him/her like your special grade customer, all priorities must be opened to the boss. This is because he/she needs all the support and leadership he/she could get from his/her employees; I mean he/she just can't do it alone. You will realize that by doing so your boss is more motivated in his pursuit to achieving the business goals resulting in a win-win situation between you and your boss.
Good bosses normally give direction with distinction, not obscure or vague picture of his/her goals. Their vision is usually sharp, just like the needle of a compass. Your job is to follow the direction of the compass needle and don't ever lose sight of it. To be ahead of him/her you must always strive for more, like 30% extra than targeted, and by the end of the day you will realize you have done it effortlessly.
This is what the Japanese called “Hoshin Kanri” or in many English , policy deployment. Do a Google search on Hoshin Kanri and you’d be surprised on the huge amount of write-ups about it. I called it “my boss policy control”. By adhering to the boss’s policy or vision, you’ll find out that you are focused and poised in your actions to get the results that you and your organization are looking for.Those who failed were those who led their ego went in between the boss and themselves. These were the people who said that they got their own way of doing things. They thought that by following the direction of the compass needle given by the boss, the boss was undermining their leadership quality and gave no or little authority to make things happen. If fact one of the major attributes on leadership laid down by Napoleon Hill, the author of the great book Think and Grow Rich is “the habit of doing more than paid for” These are the people who will become bad bosses later in their life. So, look out for these type of bosses.
Once I had this experience in Japan. The organization that I was with organized a field trip to some interesting places which we had to pay some amount from our pocket money. Well, since we had to pay partially, some of us, especially those who came from countries far away from Japan suggested to substitute with other places of interest. There was much discussion that some how or rather boiled into argument. I realized that my Koreans friends were very passive in this discussion, so out of curiosity I asked one of them. The answer I got was very subtly simple. He said in his Korean culture, once we find that the organization has worked diligently to provide us with good service we just follow and look forward in the results. He continued that he would only complain if he finds that the trip is not worth his money rather than wasting time arguing for something that is not known. It came out later that the trip was really a good one and those who left behind could only envy us.
Business is about getting things done the way that you and your boss had planned, at a profit. With more profit you can invest in more resources to get even more splendid things done. To achieve this, there is nothing more important than having all the people in your organization working together towards the direction squarely targeted at the vision of the big boss.
