Back to Dear Lucy homepageI have just started in a newly created role to drum up clients for a mid-sized corporate consultancy. My line manager is a 50-something male who has been in his job for decades and whose highlight of the day is a hot lunch in the office canteen. Having tried time and again to enthuse him about commercial possibilities, he simply scoffs and sends me off on wild goose chases. I now realise he has been secretly siphoning off the leads and passing them off as his own. Is there a way to remedy this infantile behaviour or should I declare him a lost cause and start feeding him red herrings?
Discontented, 40-something female
Lucy’s Answer
Your boss is a fool. Not because he passes your work off as his own: this makes perfect sense and is what most bosses do. By claiming some of the credit for work done by juniors, seniors justify their higher salaries and grander positions.
Neither is your boss a fool for looking forward to his lunch in the canteen - these reliable pleasures are hard to come by and if he has found one, then good luck to him. Indeed, enjoying a hot meal at lunchtime makes him sound like a predictable, reasonable sort of person who you should be managing a lot better than you are, of which more in a minute.
Instead, what makes him a fool is that he has alienated you. If he were a good manager he would be able to take some credit for your work when he talks to his seniors, but when he talks to you he should be generous and lay on the praise with a trowel. That way you go on providing the leads that go towards paying both of your salaries.
He is managing you badly; but it sounds as if you are making an even worse job of dealing with him. Your contempt shines through in the way you’ve written your problem, and I bet you’ve communicated that to him.
If he is the sort of traditional male who can only cope with ideas that are his own, you need to pander to that. Have a toad-in-the-hole with him one day in the canteen and try to talk about the issue nicely. Congratulate him on following up your leads.
If he comes to distrust you a little less, things may run a lot more smoothly before long.
