Navigating Authenticity: How To Be Honest With Your Manager Without Overstepping
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A lot has been said recently about authenticity in the workplace, but what does this mean when it comes to your relationship with your manager? Sure, you want to be genuine at work, but you also want to cultivate relationships that are high-functioning, predictable, and productive, and that serve your professional ambitions. So how can you develop good rules of thumb to decide what to share with your manager and what to keep to yourself?
Cultivate Your Emotional Intelligence
Honing the social skills that help you navigate your professional life can be as important as developing the hard skills that enable your work. Psychology Today defines emotional intelligence as "the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions, as well as the emotions of others."
Cultivating emotional intelligence in the workplace means finding a strategic and productive way to interact with your colleagues, including your boss. It starts with deep listening and follow-through based around that analysis rather than a reactive response to feelings generated in the moment.
Whether you're comfortable and connected to your boss, or you find their manager style a bit less inviting, noting these observations and developing an appropriate communication style to serve the relationship is key.
The Basics of a Productive Relationship with Management
What does a healthy, productive relationship with a manager look like? You don't need your manager to be your friend, although a cordial relationship is certainly helpful. Instead, you need your manager to provide clarity, support, and coaching: "Having an effective relationship with your supervisor is vital if you want an advocate for you when you are not in the room," Kathleen Hermacinski, director of human resources at Eureka College explained. "Ideally, a supervisor should know what the employee's strengths and weaknesses are, what their professional and career goals are, and implement strategies on how the employee can achieve those goals."
While your relationship with your manager is different than others in your life, like all relationships, it can only succeed if it's built on trust. "Trust between two parties, but especially the employee and employer, can be difficult to cultivate but hard to break once established," Hermacinski pointed out. "Take the time to learn more about your supervisor and welcome conversations where the supervisor is getting to know you."
Your relationship with your manager has an important impact on your professional life. Develop and tend it thoughtfully.
What Does It Really Mean To Bring Our Whole Selves to Work?
The emphasis on workplace authenticity can feel liberating and confusing at the same time. While it's refreshing to be encouraged to bring your authentic self into the workplace, it also seems unclear exactly what this invites. In his book "Bring Your Whole Self to Work," author Mike Robbins explained: "Bringing our whole selves to work means showing up authentically, leading with humility, and remembering that we're all vulnerable, imperfect human beings doing the best we can. It's also having the courage to take risks, speak up, ask for help, connect with others in a genuine way, and allow ourselves to be truly seen."
This notion, then, is less about "letting it all hang out," and more about feeling comfortable at work, positioning yourself to truly grow. Hermacinski described it this way: "Employees are human and humans come with complex emotions and backgrounds. By bringing your authentic self to work, employees are more resistant to burnout when they can be themselves during the work week instead of attempting to hide behind a professional persona."
Targeting authenticity, however, does not mean indulging disruptive impulses. "Bringing your authentic self to work does not invite employees to become unprofessional, bring drama into the workplace, defy established policies and procedures, or become disrespectful," Hermacinski added.
Rules of Thumb for Authentic Communication at Work
When it comes to your relationship with your manager, it's fair to share details about your life; in fact, it's often helpful. Life gets messy, and that impacts work. Feeling understood and supported can help.
But it's advisable to refrain from oversharing. Remember the nature of your relationship with your manager and keep that in the forefront of your mind. While you want to feel comfortable with your manager, it's not a friendship. It's a strategic relationship.
These are some standards that Hermacinski advises:
- Do not talk about religion and politics.
- Do ask for feedback on a project or recently completed task.
- Employees can vent frustrations to their supervisor but be cognizant to maintain some positivity or find the silver lining.
- Do bring the supervisor a problem and at least one potential solution.
- Do discuss pay, including financial expectations. Ask your supervisor what can be done for greater responsibilities that will translate into a benefit (higher pay, more flexibility, title change, etc.)
Take time to prepare for your meetings with your manager. Decide in advance what you're comfortable sharing in that context and what you'd rather keep private so that you're routinely operating from a strategic mind frame.
Diversify Your Support Network
A perk of working in higher education is the rich campus community that can help you navigate professional life at the institution. While your manager is an important part of this, that person is not your only resource.
Take advantage of the wealth of resources on campus. There are plenty of people, other than your manager, whom you can consult about your career goals and ambitions along with concerns or questions you may have about your role, institution, or professional culture. This way, you don't have to lean quite so heavily on your manager. Plus, when you do meet with your boss, you'll be coming from an informed perspective.
Hermacinski recommended getting to know your HR partner, for example. "Utilize your human resources department and cultivate a relationship with your HR point of contact," she advised. "HR professionals typically understand the employee/employer culture more than most departments on campus. Ask your HR team what their experience is when negotiating salaries, how performance improvement plans work, or how to analyze job descriptions." You don't need to experience something negative to trigger a relationship with your HR partner. Pursuing this relationship is a professional resource that can help enhance your knowledge and perspective.
Hermacinski also recommended leaning into professional organizations where you can learn more about your specific industry and how your peers work at other institutions. This also provides opportunities to network with your counterparts.
Finally, Hermacinski pointed to the career resources on campus as a robust resource. These departments help students, graduate students, and alumni hone their professional skills and prepare for the workforce. "Reach out to a trusted member in your career services area for advice as they see current trends as they prepare to launch recent graduates into the workforce," Hermacinski said.
Remember
Bringing your whole self to work means showing up as the evolving professional you are. Strengthen the pursuit by strategically navigating professional relationships that serve you, including the one you have with your manager. "Follow your gut," Hermacinski said. "In my experience, the happiest employees have a positive and supportive work environment that starts with the immediate supervisor. It can take time, energy, and strategy to create those open lines of communication with your supervisor, but it will pay off professionally in the end."
