Why You Should Really Be Thanking Your Boss, Even Though You May Dislike Them.
In a recent discussion with an upcoming successful entrepreneur (and my good friend), I mentioned how I have been crossing paths with a number of clients who have decided their next job will be one that they are passionate about then one which pays them well. And how they never want to work for a horrible boss again no matter how good the money is on offer.
My friends’ response caught me completely off guard.
“They should really be thanking their boss no matter how much they dislike them.”
“What?”
This may be hard for me to repeat to my disgruntle clients, so I asked him to explain himself. He gave me the first 5 reasons that came to mind.
1. Social Interaction
When one is working for themselves, their only social interaction is with their clients. However, if one is working with teams, they have the opportunity to learn faster about how to interact appropriately in a social environment. Added to this, this gives them numerous opportunities to learn what to do and not do, given the endless differing personalities they have to deal with every day. Who makes you work with different personality teams? Your boss of course!
2. Growth
One cannot excel unless they are surrounded by others who push them and motivate them. When we are given hard tasks by our boss, we will initially swear under our breath at them, look for validation with excuses like, we need more training, they should hire more resources, and why me? But have we ever thought, maybe our boss has given us these tasks because they believe we can do them even though we ourselves believe they’re impossible? Or our boss has given us something that’s outside of our comfort zone, and anything outside one’s comfort zone is a building mechanism for one’s growth.
3. Motivation
We can all pat ourselves on the back when we do something great. Does it motivate us? Not really. Yet when our boss acknowledges our achievements, we feel obligated, if not highly motivated, to do much more for them.
4. Becoming organised
How else would we have learned how to be organised unless we are sent invitations to meetings and given deadlines by our boss? Imagine a world where we were told we could get our work done whenever we felt like it. We would be living in a world of procrastinators.
5. Finding our purpose
We initially took up our role with our employer because we felt we are capable of doing it. Then our boss began to give us an endless task and projects.
We become overwhelmed. And yet, we don’t realise our boss has a plan or is testing the waters to find out what we excel in — something we can’t see given we are in the trenches of it all.
In most of these cases, we discover our purpose. One which may not have been what we originally thought when we first started the job. Who do we have to thank for that? Why – our boss of course! Our boss is the one person who can see our potential objectively rather than we ourselves who cannot see it due to our subjective opinion of ourselves. I took his comments on a personal level and decided to think back to some of my bosses.
I remembered one job where after working as an Application Developer, I was offered the role of Development Manager. My boss threw me into the deep waters by making me work on 10+ projects at any one time. Initially, I was stressed and felt under appreciated. What I didn’t notice, and yet my boss did, was how organised I was with my planning. He promoted me to Project Manager. I would not have achieved this without my boss laying down the groundwork — and yes, I now do love project managing but didn’t know it at the time.
Who would have thought I would be ringing my bosses from my previous employment and thanking them for their efforts.
About the Author: Razz is a business growth coach, specialising in lead generation.
