Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [51]
3. Foster a little competition. Though employees want you to be fair, they also thrive when there's healthy competition. Send out a memo praising a particular employee's accomplishment. Give the person with the great idea a chance to present it elsewhere in the company.
4. Sound firm. Say “Please get it to me 9:00 A.M. Monday” rather than “It would be great if you could get it to me Monday.”
5. Run Gutsy Meetings. Employers give the impression they enjoy easygoing meetings where they get to shoot the breeze, laugh and joke. But what they really want from you are tight, short meetings with clear agendas and resolutions. Only invite those who are absolutely necessary. Distribute a written agenda of the general points you want addressed. Don't allow interruptions or distractions. Keep it to half an hour if possible, an hour tops, and end by summarizing the key decisions and the steps to be taken (along with deadlines about when people will get back).
BUT NONE OF THIS MEANS YOU SHOULD BE A BITCH
When I say that it's important to be tough and firm, by no means do I suggest you be a bitch. There was a time when bitchiness in the corner office had a certain cachet—you got to pretend you were playing a Joan Crawford role in a movie—but those days are over. Though we think of bitches as being tough and mean, I've come to believe that in many cases they are former good girls who are overcompensating. As soon as they feel taken advantage of or threatened, their adrenaline pumps up and they act like Doberman pinschers.
Though bitchiness works short term—people scatter out of your office and immediately begin toeing the line—in the long run it will be your undoing. Employees wait anxiously for bitches to get theirs, do what they can to facilitate that, and gleefully watch as the boom comes down. It's not just a women's issue. Mean bosses of both sexes put themselves in jeopardy these days.
HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO WORSHIP YOU
I'm about to make a statement that will seem to contradict everything I've said up until now in this chapter. To assure your success, you need to have the people you work with feel a fierce sense of devotion toward you.
How can this make any sense after I've stated you shouldn't worry whether or not people like you. Because liking someone and being devoted to them isn't one and the same thing.
To inspire devotion, you must give people something they secretly want. It doesn't mean you have to be their best friend or mother, bend over backwards for them, do their dirty work, solve their problems, or listen to them describe their herniated disc in great detail. Here's what I think they're really looking for.
The Secret Thing Your Boss Wants: PASSION
Your passion. Yes, your boss expects you to be good at your job, but what she truly wants is for you to be passionate— about what you do, about the department or organization, and yes, passionate about working for her.
Being passionate doesn't mean staying late every night to clean the blackboards. It means demonstrating a turbo-charged enthusiasm for what you're doing and what your boss is doing.
An important aspect of showing your passion is what I call “face time.” Make your presence known, let your boss in on what's happening, stick your head in her door just to let her see that you're “back,” send along thought-provoking articles relating to the business with “Thought you'd be interested” Post-its. In the thick of my good-girl days, I allowed myself to believe that keeping a low profile made my boss happiest because I wasn't being a nudge. But since then I've come to see that absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder.
Management consultant Kathy Strickland, head of the Strickland Group in New York City, who has trained some of my managers, says laughingly