Understanding Your New Boss’ Expectations
When you get a new boss, things are bound to change. Your new boss will most likely have different expectations for you and your team, a different view of your department’s direction, different ways of communicating, and different priorities than your previous boss. Part of Managing your Career is taking a proactive part in understanding what is expected of you by your new boss.
Creating a Productive Relationship with Your New Boss
The faster you create a productive relationship with your new boss, the less chance you will be misaligned with your boss, work at cross-purposes with your boss, be un-supportive of the new direction of your team, and/or be moved into the Progressive Discipline process, or, even worse, get laid off or fired.
Avoiding Getting Fired by a New Boss
Where things often go wrong with a new boss, is when you don’t know what changes the new boss requires. You may just assume that you should keep doing your job as you always have. But your new boss may have very different expectations. And, you can’t meet your new boss’ expectations, if you don’t know them. The quickest way to know your new boss’ expectations is to ask.
Below are questions you can ask your boss to speed up the process of understanding their expectations and who they are as a leader. We hope these questions will prevent you from needing our Job Search Coaching services! But, sometimes it’s just inevitable that a new boss is going to clean house and hire their cronies. So in that case, we’re here for you. Just use the yellow button a the right to schedule a consultation with us.
Questions to Help You Learn Your New Boss’ Expectations
- What are your expectations of me? (Simple, right? But not often asked of a new boss right away.)
- What should my goals be?
- What should my priorities be?
- This is what I’m working on, is there anything you want to change about my scope of work?
- Is there anything that I can work on for you that hasn’t already been assigned to me?
- What would a successful next 6 months look like for me?
- What’s one thing I could do differently?
- What skills do you want me to work on developing?
- How best can I communicate with you?
- Are there certain times of the day or day of the week that you prefer your staff to contact you?
- What types of information do you want from me?
- What do you want to be consulted on?
- What can I do to support you?
- What are your goals?
- What’s your biggest problem in this position and how can I help you solve it?
- What are your top 3 priorities in your role (at this time)?
- On what criteria will you be evaluated?
- When you think of the best employees you’ve had work for you, what made them stand out?
- What should I know about your management style?
- What do you see as the future of our department?
- What do we need to do to get there?
- How can I best help our department meet its mission?
- Can you tell me about the story of your career?
- What do you want to know about me?