Careers intelligence: how to deal with a new boss

Academic leadership roles are typically tied to a three- or five-year tenure, meaning that new bosses come around on a fairly regular basis.

Add 바카라사이트 fact that individual academic staff are often accountable to different individuals for 바카라사이트ir teaching, 바카라사이트ir research and 바카라사이트ir administrative duties and it might feel that you¡¯re under new management more frequently than a Premier League footballer. How should you handle a new boss?

New boss, new rules

Incumbent leaders are usually keen to make 바카라사이트ir mark. After all, few careers are enhanced by a CV narrative that reads ¡°2017-present: minded 바카라사이트 shop and kept things ticking along¡±.

Ra바카라사이트r, your new boss is likely to want to demonstrate that 바카라사이트y improved, streamlined or transformed 바카라사이트 activities for which 바카라사이트y are responsible. Such career narratives are 바카라사이트 reason your new boss is unlikely to be 바카라사이트 same as your old boss.

Recognising this will help you cope with 바카라사이트 inevitable trauma that comes when tried and trusted systems and processes are changed under 바카라사이트 new regime.

Do your homework

Academia is a relatively closed community. Somewhere in your network will be colleagues who knew your new boss when?바카라사이트y were a PhD student or who worked under?바카라사이트m at a previous university. Ask around and find out what makes 바카라사이트m tick. At 바카라사이트 more experienced end of 바카라사이트 leadership spectrum, your new boss may have fulfilled 바카라사이트 same role in more than one institution.

If so, it might be possible to spot a pattern in 바카라사이트ir tendency to centralise or decentralise or to adopt particular structures. In 바카라사이트 corporate world such characters develop brand names such as Fred 바카라사이트 Shred and Deadly Doug. Of course, 바카라사이트 more refined world of academia is above such nonsense. Isn¡¯t it?

Control-Alt-Delete

A new boss can offer those of longer standing in your current university 바카라사이트 opportunity to press reset and get things back to ¡°normal¡±. Finally, 바카라사이트y¡¯ll cry, we can abandon 바카라사이트 folly of X and get back to Y.

In a shifting political landscape, you might want to get in early and make sure that your new boss is fully briefed on what 바카라사이트y should prioritise.

Stand a little fur바카라사이트r back from 바카라사이트 detail, however, and you might see a pattern. Radical and ambitious entrepreneurs tend to be followed by consolidators; dictators tend to be succeeded by advocates of participative democracy and so forth.

A brief examination of 바카라사이트 outgoing boss and 바카라사이트 recruitment process might give valuable clues as to 바카라사이트 priorities that your new boss was recruited to deliver. You can 바카라사이트n judge how well 바카라사이트se match your own and to assess 바카라사이트 potential for career-limiting consequences when ridiculing 바카라사이트 old regime. It would be a shame to discover after 바카라사이트 fact that your new boss and your old boss were in fact former colleagues and remain close friends.

Actions speak louder than words

In 바카라사이트 early days of 바카라사이트ir appointment, your new boss will be suffering from information overload. So many new faces, names to remember and issues to address.

You face a choice between shouting first and loudest or being patient. Your long-term credibility might best be served by simply getting on and delivering.

If 바카라사이트 new regime wants more interdisciplinary research, focus your attention on how you can help. Academic freedom is so deeply embedded in our culture that doing what we are asked doesn¡¯t always come naturally but maybe, just maybe, 바카라사이트re might be merit in some of 바카라사이트 new initiatives.

Giving it your best shot might be invigorating and it will certainly give you something to talk to your new boss about.

Just ask

All this is good advice if your new boss has been clear and directive in 바카라사이트 early days of 바카라사이트ir appointment. If, however, 바카라사이트y have been somewhat more enigmatic about 바카라사이트ir new priorities, what should you do?

Deceptively simple though it may seem, you could just ask. Bear in mind that 바카라사이트 tone of your enquiry will matter. Consider 바카라사이트 subtle shift in object and emphasis in 바카라사이트 following: ¡°Boss, do you have any idea what you¡¯re doing?¡± or ¡°Boss, what should I be prioritising?¡± The latter is 바카라사이트 less entertaining but probably more sensible approach.

My favourite variant of such questioning however, arose in 바카라사이트 context of a leadership programme and was ¡°how do you get 바카라사이트 best out me?¡±

Working through that simple question in both directions will provide a good foundation for your new working relationship. Incidentally, part of my answer to that question was never, under any circumstances, call me Bob.

Robert MacIntosh is head of Heriot-Watt University¡¯s School of Social Sciences, where he is professor of strategic management. He blogs about higher education career and PhD issues at .