Leadership

Help! I've Upset My Boss!

By Ron Brown

Updated on: October 27, 2009 / 12:57 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Dear Ron, I've been pressing my boss for what I feel is a long-overdue raise, but the last time I asked, he blew up at me and he's been giving me the cold shoulder ever since. How can I work my way back into his good graces?
There are several possible reasons for your boss's response that you have to sort out here. One possibility may be that your boss may literally not be able to give you a raise and so is annoyed by your requests. He may also feel you simply don't deserve one, but is uncomfortable telling you so directly. Or perhaps you're simply not asking the right way-maybe you've tied getting a raise too closely to your continuing to work hard for him, and your boss doesn't like how that sounds. Here, getting some advice from a mentor or other experienced people in your network about the most effective way to ask for a raise at your company could be helpful. There are also plenty of good articles about how to ask for a raise in difficult economic times.

At a more general level, though, it's fairly common for people to ask managers for raises, often repeatedly, and most good managers should know how to respond. So while it could simply be that your boss is a bit inexperienced, there's probably a reason why he got so upset this time, and you need to find out why and figure out how to repair the relationship. So you might say something to your boss like: "I thought things were going well between us, but I've noticed things have taken a turn lately. Can you help me understand why?"

If that's too direct, you might try coming at it with some humor or lightness-for example, "Boy I really stepped on a hot button last week. I don't want to go there again." The point is to try to re-engage with your boss and figure out what went wrong.

One of my clients, a middle manager at a health services company, had no idea what he'd done to anger his boss, who to that point had been a major supporter of his. But all of a sudden, his boss grew cold towards him, and began keeping his interactions with him to a minimum. Finally, my client spoke to his boss, artfully explaining that his boss's withdrawal had really begun to affect his work and so he needed to find out what had happened. After some coaxing, his boss finally told him that he'd been irritated that my client had been praised very highly in a public meeting, and that my client seemed to be basking in that praise a bit too much. His boss was probably a little embarrassed by his own response, which likely prevented him from addressing it.

From that point on, though, my client worked hard to find opportunities where he could give credit to and praise his boss, albeit in a skillful way that didn't make what he was doing too obvious. His goal was to stand in the background as much as possible and instead highlight his boss's contributions. Eventually, my client's boss came around and supported my client's later promotion. Their relationship was never quite the same again, but the main rupture had been effectively patched over.

So I'd urge you to try talk to your boss about what happened and why. Generally speaking, as with any relationship, it's better to err on the side of more discussion with your boss, rather than less. But you also have to be prepared for the fact that you may get some difficult feedback about what you've been doing (or not doing), and so you have to be willing to take that in and address it.