11

DEALING WITH A BOSS WHO DOESN’T “GET IT”

Not everyone gets social media – to say the least – and this is likely to be the case for some time. There is a very strong chance that your boss is someone who doesn’t understand the web or social tools. How do you deal with this?

We have all at some time faced the challenge of a boss who doesn’t understand what we are doing. The need to “manage upwards” is not new. But what is new is that with social tools our bosses can see what we are thinking – in black and white – and this can be intimidating. However, if you are worried about your boss reading what you are saying on your blog, what are you actually worried about? Are you worried that he won’t approve of you and your ideas? Are you worried that you will expose the fact that you know less than he thinks you do!? Isn’t this a problem in real life anyway, not just in your blog? In fact blogs are rarely the issue in themselves but they do open up cans of worms and make us aware of things that were already issues and that, arguably, we should have been dealing with.

One of the fundamental outcomes of social media is people finding their own voice. Having the confidence to say what they think in public and standing up to disagreement or disapproval when they do so. This is as much about assertiveness and self-respect as it is about anything else. It is about your relationship to the world about you, the important people in your life – even your relationship with yourself. What do you ...

Get Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do: A Manager's Guide to the Social Web now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.