The key to developing chemistry with the people above and below you is to build relationships with them. If you can learn to adapt to your boss's personality while still being yourself and maintaining your integrity, you will be able to “lead up.” Know the character of your manager, executive or sponsor, and you'll be able to work better with him or her for the good of the project.
To achieve that chemistry, you must deal with your team “as human beings, not only as employees,” says Gregorio Tierno, PMP, senior project manager at Hewlett-Packard, Barcelona, Spain. “Being confident, respectful, sincere, creating a team spirit in the project, clarifying the common objective—these attitudes should generate enthusiasm.”
The key to balancing executive and team values is to mediate, according to Adriano Brilli, PMP, senior project manager, Ericsson, Rome, Italy. “Different interests can converge into a project, functional workload and project work,” he says. “The solution is always in the ability to mediate between needs and priorities, with an understanding approach from both sides.”
As a project leader, take it upon yourself to connect not only with the people you lead, but also with the person who leads you. This process is becoming more difficult as many foreign enterprises acquire or merge with European firms, and the cross-cultural challenges increase. On European projects, I have seen key cultural characteristics, including an inordinate sense of reality, a sense of social responsibility, a mistrust of authority, and a desire for security and continuity.
Here are several practices that can help you build a better relationship with your boss, and thereby improve how you relate to our team:
- Listen to your leader's heartbeat. Everyone has dreams, issues or causes that connect with them on a deep emotional level—find out what your boss's are. This may mean paying attention in informal settings, such as during hallway conversations. Lunches in Spain are a great opportunity for this because they tend to last long.
- Know your leader's priorities. Look beyond the to-do lists to the short list your boss's boss would say is do-or-die. The more acquainted you are with those duties or objectives, the better you will understand and communicate with your leader.
- Catch your leader's enthusiasm. Support your leader's vision. When you can articulate the vision leaders have cast for the organization, it indicates a level of ownership. Promote your leader's dreams, and he or she will promote you.
- Connect with your leader's interests. Try to relate to your leader as an individual beyond the job. If your boss is a golfer, for example, you may want to take up the game or learn some things about it.
- Understand your leader's personality. Leaders are used to having others accommodate their personalities. They expect the people who work for them to work with them. Be aware of your leader's style and how your personality type interacts with his or her's. Most of the time, opposites get along if their values and goals are similar. The trouble starts when people with similar personality types come together. Remember, you are the one who has to be flexible—and that can be difficult for some people.
- Earn your leader's trust. Invest in relational chemistry with your boss, and the eventual result will be trust, or relational currency. When you do things that add to the relationship, you increase the change in your pocket. Do negative things, and you spend that change. If you keep dropping the ball, professionally or personally, you harm the relationship, and you can eventually bankrupt it.
- Learn to work with your leader's weaknesses. Everyone has blind spots and problem areas. Focus on the positives and work around the negatives.
The quality of the relationship you have with your boss will impact your success or failure with your own team. It's certainly worth the effort to make the connection with him or her. PM