Working under a high performing boss ? You are blessed
- Kritanjali Maltiar
Is your boss a high performer? Be happy if he is because
researchers have proposed that working under a high performer is beneficial for
your career advancement. According to a conceptual framework proposed by
authors, professor Pearl Malhotra from IIM Bangalore and Professor Manjari
Singh from IIM Ahmedabad, it is good news if you happen to work under a high
performing boss/manager at your workplace. You might argue that your
manager/boss is so busy that he does not have any time or interest to expend to
improving your career, in fact he is not bothered about your career at all. But
here is the actual good news, he doesn’t necessarily have to be bothered about
your career for you to benefit from being his subordinate and enhance your own
prospects. The situation is a boon for you anyway. You have the opportunity to
observe him and his ways of working and to emulate them in your own work and
consequently reap the advantages of his working style.
Your star performer boss gives you headaches with his
exacting and demanding nature. He wants your work to be perfect with no room
for mistakes. But think about it, doesn’t that enhance your job-related
competencies, lead to lesser mistakes on your part, increase your productivity
and gives you an eye for detail? Based on previous studies cited in their work,
the authors Malhotra & Singh say that these are the benefits you accrue to
your job competencies when you align your work standard with that of your high
performer boss. This will be more useful to you if you believe yourself to be
more capable of being good at the job. The more your self-efficacy, the more
the emulation of his job competencies will increase your valuable skill-set.
Working under a high performing boss (who enjoys a high level of visibility on
account of his networking ability), you are exposed to his vast network and
have the opportunity to make yourself more visible by acquiring it. Not all
subordinates can, however, equally leverage their bosses’ network, not all of
them have the capability to do so. How much are they able to extract from their
bosses’ network depends on their self-esteem and extraversion. While
self-esteem is a measure of how much you consider yourself fit enough to be
interacting with people in positions superior to yourself, extraversion is the
personality trait which decides how comfortably you interact with people in
general.
Summing it all in a coherent and logical framework, the
authors have conceptualized this new understanding of the indirect impact of
working under a high performer on their subordinates’ career advancement in an
article published in the academic Journal ‘Human Resource Management Review’ in
2016 (Malhotra & Singh, 2016). Their main argument is, job competencies of
the high performer lead to an increase in his subordinates’ ‘Human Capital’ by
emulation, and this relationship is moderated by the subordinates’
self-efficacy. More the self-efficacy of the subordinate, more the increase in
his human capital after emulation. Finally, higher human capital of the
subordinate leads to his career advancement. Similarly, networking abilities of
high performers leads to improvement in their subordinates’ ‘Social Capital’ by
emulation. This emulation of networking abilities happens more when the
subordinate is high on self-esteem and extraversion. The more the self-esteem
and extraversion of the subordinates, the more they emulate, and the more the
subsequent improvement in their Social Capital. Finally, higher social capital
of the subordinate leads to his career advancement.
This work is of significance to every working professional.
The takeaway from the work of prof. Pearl Malhotra and prof. Manjari Singh, is
that high performer bosses/managers can be role models. If you think of your
high-performing manager as your role-model, you would observe his
work-behaviour, not only the technical aspects of his work but also how he
interacts with his superiors, colleagues and juniors. Depending on your
self-efficacy, self-esteem and extraversion, you would emulate their job
competencies and networking abilities and reap tremendous benefits such as
exposure (even in your current role) to more challenging tasks for future
roles, promotions, salary hikes, better job assignments, visibility to higher
management etc, in other words, better career prospects.
So, the key is in your own hands; you can turnaround the
unpleasant experience of working under an exacting and demanding, high-performing boss into a means, a ladder for your own career advancement.
Improve your self-confidence (self-efficacy plus self-esteem), go ahead and emulate
your bosses’ job-competencies and networking abilities and get that dream
promotion or salary hike!
References:
Malhotra, P. & Singh, M. (2016). Indirect impact
of high performers on the career advancement of their subordinates. Human
Resource Management Review, 26, 209-226.
Suggestions on the structure of writing
ReplyDelete1. Are you working under a high performing boss?
2. Repetition of title in the blog. It can be used once.
3. One can add a small intro line after the main heading
4. 4th line of the first paragraph says “boss/manager’ it can be replaced with senior or superior as one term. You can be consistent with term “boss”, “senior” to prevent confusion in readers mind
5. The line “You might argue …..,,, your career at all” The idea from “…. in fact, he is not bothered”. May be it can be restructured. As a reader, it seems to be a little ambiguous to me what is being referred.
6. In first paragraph 6th line But here is the “actual good” (good) news” looks like clutter. Inverted quotes mean cluttering in bracket is the suggested change
7. In the same line ….” doesn’t necessarily” have to “be” bothered (do not have to bother)
8. “You have the opportunity to observe him and his ways of working and to emulate them in your own work and consequently reap the advantages of his working style.” The sentence can be broken as. “You have the opportunity to observe him and his ways of working. You can emulate them in your “own” (clutter word not needed) work and consequently reap the advantages of his working style.”
9. Second paragraph, “exacting and demanding” sounds clutter can be replaced with single word or just demanding will be enough
10. Paragraph 2 line 2: Clutter “job-related competencies” (competencies)
11. Para 2 line 3 “gives you an eye for detail” as a lay man I did not understand this so you may like to rephrase it
12. “Self-Efficacy” a new jargon introduced which was not explained earlier.
13. Removal of this bracketed information (who enjoys a high level of visibility on account of his networking ability) can be done as in next line it is evident by your statement that he has wide network
14. Para 2 Line 8: Not all subordinates can, however, equally leverage their bosses’. Can be re written as “However not all subordinates can equally leverage their bosses’
15. Para 2 Line 8: Clutter “have the capability to do so” (can)
16. Overall Idea of Paragraph2: Too many terms introduced like extraversion, self-efficacy and so forth, which might make the general audience to lose interest.
Para 3: “Summing it all in a coherent and logical framework” (To Sum up)
17. Para 3 First Sentence can be shortened or broken further. One idea per sentence is the key
18. The terms “Human Capital” and “self-efficacy” “Extraversion” will not be much clear to the general audience to understand as far as a blog is concerned. What do they simply mean? I as a person can guess some idea about it, but for the general public it will now make much sense
19. Para 3 Line 6th and last line .. “Finally” where were other ideas. I think it can be clutter as the blog did not talk any other idea earlier to say use Finally
20. Overall Para 3: Lot of technical constructs used. Lesser simplified version. One can use examples to explain simply. Repetition was also seen in the ideas.
21. Para 4: Too much repetition of the name of the two writers. It can be done away with.
22. Para 4, Last sentence, Too long to be simple + loads of repeated ideas with constructs
23. Overall the blog started very well with the catchy blog title. The title also came up clearly in the blog entry. Improvement can be in the direction of simplification of words, explanation of technical words, sentence fragmentation in small sizes and consistencies in use of terms. I follow a rule “One Idea Per Sentence only”. Overall Good write up.
Comment posted by Gurpreet Singh, Doctoral Student IIM-A
DeleteThanks for this comprehensive feedback
DeleteReally thankful for this detailed review. I appreciate all of them and will keep them in mind for next such write up. However, I want to mention your points no 7, 10 and 16.
Delete7. The work that I chose for this blog mentions that there is impact of the superiors on their subordinates' career, 'with or without' intentional involvement of the superior. Hence, I thought it would be good to clarify it with the term 'necessarily'.
10. This chosen work also mentions 'job competencies' as a construct. General competencies differ from the specific 'job competencies' and so cannot use it loosely as just 'competencies'.
16. This is a drawback that the chosen article has many specific terms which may come across as jargon to the reader. I have tried to explain their meaning in the blog as far as possible but agreed that it slows the pace and makes the reader lose interest.
Also, point number 12.
DeletePlease read the term self-efficacy' in the context of the sentence preceding it, '......if you believe yourself to be more capable of being good at the job. The more your self-efficacy, the more ....'.
Point number 19.
'Human Capital' is a mediator between 'job competencies' and 'Career advancement'.
'Social Capital' is a mediator between 'networking abilities' and 'career advancement'.
General public cannot understand mediation. So to make the model clear, I had to say,
'A impacts B, and "finally", B impacts C'.
Would appreciate and will benefit if you could suggest any other way to simplify the model.
Your 'one idea per sentence' is a golden rule.
All the replies are posted by Kritanjali Maltiar
ReplyDeleteThis was a wonderfully summarized rendition of the idea that we wanted to espouse as authors. The essence of the conceptual framework proposed has been captured and set very well in the natural context of current organisational culture. Most of the nuances have been included in the article just as the authors intended. The writing is effortless and persuasive, and the blog’s author has ensured that the audience would be able to understand the gist of an academic theoretical article. It would have been notable if the author had added her own insights on the article, through other research either via corroboration or a counter argument. On a lighter note, the author assumed that the article is relevant only to men 😊 I hope the author uses neutral pronouns like they or s/he in the future.
ReplyDeleteP.S: Do refer to us as Malhotra & Singh, rather than adding titles. Refer to The Atlantic/ Scientific American for higher familiarity with such academic to real articles.
Thank you for your valuable comments Pearl. It means a lot and will take your comments seriously when writing again.
DeleteYou are right that both men and women have bosses at work, but can you please elaborate on why you felt in my writing that the blog is relevant only for men? I wrote this blog keeping in mind its relevance to every working professional :)