Boss presidential?
When provided descriptions of each presidential personality, here’s who American workers compared their bosses to. (Which best describes your boss?)
Category: People Skills
Job etiquette: When a co-worker gets the pink slip
Your co-worker gets handed a pink slip, and now you feel awkward. So awkward, in fact, that you’re tempted to do nothing. But that’s the last thing you should do. Here’s how to deal with the situation:
Stop interruptions: 4 gatekeeper moves
More than half of senior executives say they’re interrupted about once every 30 minutes, according to a Center for Creative Leadership survey. Here’s where assistants can play a vital role. Stave off interruptions by partnering with your boss, using these tactics.
Create and share ‘aha’ moments
If you’re a manager, spawn more golden nugget moments for your team by creating informal learning opportunities: mentoring, on-the-job training, brainstorming and good, old-fashioned trial-and-error. Encourage employees to tap into blogs, discussion forums and wikis.
Boss a perfectionist?
The perfectionist boss can easily drive you crazy, spending time correcting others’ less-than-perfect work and agreeing to take on any and all projects. Some workaround tips for you:
Is your boss a cliffhanger?
The cliffhanger boss likes to wait until the last possible moment to deliver a finished project. He thrives under deadline pressure and will create that pressure if it isn’t there already. How can you work around that?
Resolving a conflict with the boss
Your boss asked you to prepare a spreadsheet for a meeting the next day. It took a couple of hours and some shuffling of priorities, but you did it. When you arrive at the meeting, though, your boss handed you a spreadsheet that someone else created. Should you tell your boss how frustrated you are?
The bully boss strikes again! How to deal with bosses who make crazy requests
As Administrative Professionals Week (April 19-25) approached, we couldn’t help but wonder what crazy things bosses have asked admins to do. So we asked readers of our Admin Pro Forum to tell us about the most unusual or bizarre thing their boss ever asked them to do. For starters: "Open his sandwich every day to make sure no tomatoes were on it."
Turbocharge your partnership with the boss
Admin Brooke Wiseman knew that administrative professionals in her company weren’t being used in the most productive ways. For example, some shared the same title but had wide variations in duties. Her goal was to bring more value to the company by turbocharging the partnerships between executives and their assistants. Here’s how she did it.
S-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the training budget
It won’t surprise you that most companies plan to spend less on training this year. Rather than lament the fact that there’s less money in the budget for traditional training, consider this: Less-formal training might be more effective than formal training, and it still allows you to develop your career.