Making the boss look good

Back in October 2007, in her Teaching PR blog, Karen Miller Russell tossed out a few blog topics for PR bloggers, all aimed at enlightening students. One of these was “What I wish my new employee knew", which I covered here.

But another that I wanted to touch was "If I knew then what I know now.”

Donna Papacosta was the name next to the entry, indicating that she had covered the subject. She had this to say:

"When I first started working full-time, I thought my job was to work as hard as possible and to do everything perfectly. It didn’t take me long to discover that my REAL job was to make my boss look good.

I’m not trying to be glib here. Yes, you must accomplish your tasks on time and with competence, but no one expects you to be perfect. You’re going to make plenty of mistakes along the way. If you can support your boss’s efforts, however, you will do well and you will be recognized for doing well."

As a relatively new PR executive, I can identify with the advice Donna gave then and the more time I spend learning about my first job the PR industry, the more I find her comments applying to my day to day work.

Donna has this advice for how to make your boss look good:

"Find out what makes him tick. Uncover her greatest needs in the organization and then try to help her meet them. Is Project A more important than Project B? Does he need assistance in a particular area to make HIS boss take notice?

If you make the move to your own business, as I have done, you need to transfer these skills to making your clients look good. (Yes, now I have 20 bosses to please)."

I think that the ways to make your boss look good that she mentions apply not only when you start your own business, but also when you get your first account - what have I done in the past to make my boss look good that I can use to make my clients look good?

Luckily, I have a extremely competent and knowledgable boss who gives me lots of support and opportunities for development. In return, I'm always sending over ideas/articles/blog posts/new opportunities for him that apply to our clients.

He often takes the credit for these when he discusses these ideas with our clients, which makes him, and the company, look great and so support our current work, improve on our company's reputation, and generate more business - what I like to think as PR for the company.

As time has gone on, my boss has become more confident in my abilities and has exposed me to clients - both in meetings and in every day phone/email contact - meaning that I am given experience and knowledge, as well as ackowledging my prowess as a PR executive. But my boss, and therefore the company, is given more recognition and an improved reputation for employing an excellent young executive (at least that's what I hope I'm regarded as anyway!).

As my boss acknowledges my efforts by giving me more exposure, experience and opportunities for development, it makes me want to offer him more ideas, work harder/smarter and make him/the company look even better. These improvements to our company have benefits that naturally carry over to our clients. It becomes a win-win situation all round.

So, yes - a big part of my job is to make the boss look good. But this is a very good thing for all involved and works when there is a mutual recognition of what the boss' needs are and how the employee/employer works.

When I (hopefully) climb up to the dizzy heights of the PR and Communciations industry and start to have people working under me, I hope they support me in the ways mentioned above. Perhaps more importantly though, I hope I'll remember my PR roots and support them in the way that I am being supported now.