Six things never to tell your boss unless you want to be fired

At the workplace some bosses are task-oriented while others are people-oriented. Task-oriented bosses focus on work accomplishments at the expense of good working relationships. For people-oriented bosses, maintaining a friendly working relationships supersedes the tasks to be completed.

Regardless of the category that one’s boss falls into, an employee should not tell him or her any of the following six things.

Problems with No Solutions

With unpredictable economic stability, organizations are under much pressure to produce more using fewer resources. Productivity enhancement and related factors have put bosses on the alert for innovative solutions to keep organizations afloat and competitive.

Employees who are fond of tabling business problems before the boss without offering solutions will encounter adamant deaf ears.

 Complain About Work Overload

Some bosses deride in lumping multiple tasks to selected employees as a test of workload stamina for intended future duties and responsibilities. Not knowing that they are under observation, a few of the employees bombard the boss with work overload complaints hoping to get unavailable help.

The easy way to pass the work overload test would be to break down the tasks into manageable bits and delegate some of them to junior competent staff.

 Openly Challenging Poor Decisions

One of the reasons that bosses are on the top is because they have a strong urge massaged with unquenchable ego to control people, resources and activities. Some bosses will feel offended when employees openly oppose their poor decisions under the pretext of participatory decision making.

Brilliant ideas framed to seem like they originated from the boss will always be bought as one advocates for other employees to buy-in.

 Discuss Fellow Employees

Employees who are novices in office politics sometimes engage the boss in discussing fellow employees some of whom could be in his or her hidden inner circle. Some bosses are known to put the “reporting” employee on the defense by summoning the affected employees to the meeting in question.

 Parade Home Front Troubles

Sometimes home front troubles are fermented to the extent that the most affected spouse searches for ventilation platforms. Bosses should be left out of the contacts list for spilling over uncooked home beans. Since social counseling is usually not in the training and experience curriculum of leadership, the boss will only pay lip service on family matters.

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 Flattering Compliments

Bosses are preoccupied with the big picture of meeting bottom line targets that they become impervious to casual compliments. Bosses enjoy showering praises to employees whose contributions enable them to surpass overall annual achievements.

Employees should steer away from making remarks that may be construed as flattery to the persona of the boss. Before opening one’s mouth to tell the boss something, think twice to evade uncalled for responses.

Samson Osero is a Human Resources Development Consultant. Email: [email protected]

[ See: Seven things you must get right to pass any job interview ]