How to tell if your manager believes in “heads I win, tails you lose”
alexpotato.com
alexpotato.com
In many ways the corporate world would be better if folks realized the goal of everyone should be to help other people regardless of org chart position, and that was really the only goal.
In the world of corporate politics, the best strategy is still from Wargames -- when offered the game of global thermonuclear war, don't play.
The phrase "servant leadership" is perhaps apt. A manager's job is to help the people working for them, and that's the best thing they can do to serve the people they are working for.
If there's not much can be done to fix a situation like the above, at least remember it, many folks who become managers can become better by not repeating those same mistakes. Try to build the department you wanted to work for.
Negotiate? What does Tom have to negotiate with?
As an employee, if he's assigned a task it's his job to do it. He could certainly ask for resources but the term "negotiate" seems to imply he has some choice in the matter. Like he could decide to refuse to take on the project.
This is the reality I find myself in. Now I've just decided to care about the job only as much as management does. If they don't care about certain issues; why should I? They've shown me time and time again that doing a good job or doing a mediocre job is all the same to them.
I've decided to focus my energies in other parts of my life and I feel less depressed about my job now.
That statement implies a couple assumptions:
a. Tom has to do everything his boss tells him to do. What if his boss asked him to pick up the trash or clean the toilets?
b. (a) is built on the assumption that Tom is essentially an easily replaceable "widget".
His manager obviously has a need to fill and he believies Tom is one of the few, if not only, employee who can complete the project given the constraints (time/cost/personnel etc). Tom can use this as leverage to bargain for a better outcome for himself.
For example, if your boss asks you to work a weekend say: "I am more than happy to work Saturday if I get an additional vacation day"
Example 2, if your boss keeps giving you tasks:
a. it is perfectly ok to say "I have too much on my plate"
or
b. you can say "I can do task #6 but you(boss) have to pick which of tasks #1-5 I am going to stop doing to make sure task #6 gets completed"
:aside:
I learned after my first real job that I need to protect myself from my boss's unrealistic expectations if I wanted to continue working in the position I held. But that was more of a station-keeping exercise than something to advance my career.
Well, the next step would be to determine what exactly it is that you want career-wise in the short/medium/long term.
You then use the daily interactions to gradually nudge your way there. e.g. if you want to be a manager, you need to create outcomes where you prove that you can manage people with out having authority. That shows that once you get the authority, you will know what you are doing.