What do bosses do?

Bosses, the seemingly evil creatures who at the same time stealthy to the extent that you are unsure of what they are doing behind those closed doors, if anything. Well, I sure hope your boss is not like what I described! There are definitely better bosses out there. However, not all bosses are transparent. Sometimes you are just not aware of what their actual role is, as you and your colleagues are doing all the work. Here are some clues on figuring out what your bosses actually do.

3 Role of bosses

1. QC work

Your boss should be in a position to know good or bad work when he sees it. One of his roles is to make sure your work is up to standard before someone outside or higher up gets to see it. After all, he is responsible for your work.

2. Manage the team

He is also the caretaker of the team as he takes care of the welfare and issues of the team. Remember that time your baby was sick, who was the first person you talked to?

3. Strategize

I think a key attribute that bosses should have is to play the role of the planner. They should be able to plan the long term objective of the team and implement new measures to achieve that. ( This might not be required from a middle-level boss, but definitely a good to have)

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How to get your boss to bring you for meetings

This post is dedicated to the newcomer/intern. I spent one year in a financial services firm and have honed this skill to a reasonable extent. A common pitfall for an intern is to stay in his own cubicle and too engrossed in doing his own work. For crying out loud, you can do your research at home, but when you are at work, you should fully utilize your time there. Go out and talk to your colleagues and learn from them. Sit in meetings to learn and see more. Some of them find it hard to get their bosses to bring them for meetings, so here's how:

1) establish good relations with your boss 

Make him enjoy talking to you, so he'll think about you when he's going for a meeting. Find out about what your boss likes, chat him up on these topics. 

2) show gratitude

At every opportunity your boss brought you, thank him and show that how much you appreciate his act. Everyone likes to feel appreciated, and you should not behave like bringing you for meetings is the natural thing to do.

3) be thick skinned

Possibly the ultimate cheat code of crashing meetings, is to enter , smile and say "just take me as a fly in the wall." This takes a lot of courage, really. This move was suggested by my boss himself, when he found it hard to bring me to a key meeting, but he said "doesn't mean you can't barge in yourself..."

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Never Eat Alone - for the intern

OK a golden tip for my fellow interns! I would highly recommend you to always find someone to eat lunch together. From a personal perspective, lunch sessions with my co-workers/ bosses always bring about an interesting topic and new perspectives. Some of the benefits that you could get

- Better working relationships
- Better understanding of issues within and outside your workplace
- Great advice and life stories from bosses and co-workers

Especially if you happen to be one of the 99.9% of workforce with extremely busy bosses, lunch is always the best way to interact with them.

A couple more tips to get your lunch appointment: 

Tip #1: If you find it hard to approach your bosses, thursdays and fridays are always the best time to fix lunch with your boss for the next week.

Tip #2: I make it a point to eat lunch with bosses at least once a fortnight, and I find that setting yourself a target really helps!

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