Most people believe that there is no such thing in the universe as, ‘Good boss’. A good boss acts as a coach/mentor and is the kind of person who help you to learn valuable new things, help you in getting more increments, promotions, guide you through your career and helps you to improve yourself personally and professionally? — In short, a boss who’s a real a guide, mentor, friend and partner?

I personally believe that an answer to all the above questions is ‘yes’. We generally hear more complaints about bosses than praise from people. We also assume that key to relationship between boss and subordinate lies with boss only. It’s boss’s role to make relationship smoother and easy rather than subordinate. However this is not the truth. Both boss and his subordinate are equally responsible for shaping their relationship. After all, it’s a relationship of mutual dependence. One can not succeed if other fails. So, take this mutual dependency as stepping stone to make relationship more comfortable and easy going.

You can start working towards making a good relationship with your boss by answering some of the following questions to yourself:

Are you meeting work expectation?
Every work demands a certain outcome. Same way every boss has certain expectation from their subordinates. Expectation in terms of work efficiency, taking initiatives and responsibility, meeting work deadlines, level of seriousness and professionalism. Do you think that you meet these kinds of expectations of your boss?

Does your boss criticize you?
A good mentor or coach should be a good judge al well. So that he can point out the areas of improvements, mistakes made by you thus giving you right career directions and correct you whenever you go wrong. So, do not always take it in a negative way whenever your boss correcting you, pointing your mistakes or giving you suggestions. Be feedback oriented person and appreciate it.

Does your boss trust you?
Trust is the key to any relationship and competence & character is the key to earn a trust. Does he/she trust you with your competencies, potential and ability to take up and accomplish a task? If not then there are less chances that you will get challenging work and ultimately recognition & acceptance in return.

Are you considered as a ‘difficult employee’?
Your boss might perceive you as a ‘difficult employee’ based on your approach, attitude, performance, productivity and feedback from co-workers and other managers. Why did he do that? The answer could be among the following three points:

• Work/additional responsibility is your foe.
• Your personal problems are public knowledge at workplace
• You and your work profile/company are not on the same page.

(You can read my complete blog on ‘difficult employee’ here)

In essence, you need to take responsibility of this relationship and probe what is right and wrong. Yes, I accept, there are bad bosses also with whom you only have little window of maintaining the smooth relationship, but most bosses are just people like you. With likes and dislikes, strength and weakness, interests etc. So try to build a mutually supportive and a mutually rewarding relationship with your boss. It helps! For sure.