RELATIONS WITH SUPERIORS AND SUBORDINATES

RELATIONS WITH SUPERIORS AND SUBORDINATES

Relations with your supervisors and subordinates are called vertical politics. Your superiors are persons in the organization who are on a higher level than you. The most important person to develop effective relations with is your boss. The employees you supervise and who report to you are the most important persons with whom to develop effective relations.

Your relationship with your boss will affect your job satisfaction and can mean the difference between success and failure on the job. Not getting along with your boss can make you feel life as being miserable for you. Needless to say, you should work at developing a good working relationship with your boss. Knowing your boss can lead to better human relations between the two of you. Your boss expects youtoknowyour primary responsibility, what he regards as good performance, how your performance will be evaluated.

Your boss will most likely expect loyalty, cooperation, initiative, information, and openness to criticism. Your boss will expect your respect and support. You will be expected to carry out the organization’s standing plans and any special orders with the proper attitude. Regardless of how careful you are, or how trustworthy the other person is, gossip always seems to get back to your boss.

Your boss expects youtobecooperativewith him or her and with everyone you must work with. You should be able to get along with others. Bosses don’t like anybody to be embarrassed.

Your boss will expect youtoknowyour responsibility and authority and to actwithout having to be told to do so. If there is a problem, the boss may expect youtosolveit, rather than bringit to him or her to solve.

Your boss would like youtokeephim or her informedabout what your objectives are and how you are progressing. If there are problems, your boss expects youtotellhim or her about them. You should not cover up your mistakes and your employees’ mistakes. If you get to know your boss, and meet his or her expectations, you should develop a good relationship.

If the goal of human relations is to satisfy employee needs while achieving organizational objectives, why are poor human relations common? One reason is the fact that the supervisor must consider theworktobeaccomplishedas ultimately more important than the needs and desires of those doing the work, including the supervisor’s own needs. Supervisors get so busy getting the job tobedonethat they forget bout the needs of the employees doing the work. Employees tend to start a job enthusiastically, but the supervisor does not take the time to develop the human relations necessary to maintain that enthusiasm. As a supervisor, it is important to take the time to develop effective human relations.

Human relations skills are important today, and will be even more important in the future with the changing environment. In developing supervisor-employee relations one should follow basic guidelines mentioned above. The supervisor should strive for harmonious relations where differences of opinion are encouraged and settled in a peaceful manner. A supervisor may have good human relations without being well liked personally or being popular.

The relationship between supervisor and employee is not, and cannot be, one of real friendship. The nature of supervision excludes true friendship because the supervisor must evaluate the employee’s performance; true friends don’t evaluate or judge each other in any formal way. The supervisor must also give employees directions; friends don’t order each other around. The supervisor must also get the employeetochange; friends usually don’t seriously try to change each other.

(from “Human Relations in Organizations”, the USA)