5 questions that will improve your relationship with your supervisor

Within our work, it is important for us to maintain relationships with a variety of stakeholders. This includes, for example, coworkers, other departments, and even customers in some cases. While all of these relationships are important, arguably the most important relationship you can maintain is with your immediate supervisor. This is not only because they are often directly involved in your employment outcomes—such as promotions—but also because a positive relationship with your supervisor is likely to help improve job satisfaction.

If you’ve struggled to maintain a positive relationship with your boss, or if you’d like to improve an already solid relationship, consider asking your supervisor the following 5 questions:

• • How was your weekend?
• • What’s your biggest problem and how can I help you solve it?
• • When you think of the best employees who’ve worked for you, what makes them stand out in your mind?
• • I’d love to oversee the [initiative] in the next six months. Could we keep that in mind as projects are being assigned?
• • What should I start doing, stop doing, and continue doing?

Regarding the last question, the experts explain:

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There are probably a lot of things you do well that your boss loves and probably others that s/he wishes you’d stop doing, but s/he never really had the heart or stomach to tell you. This line of questioning makes it easy for him/her to finally tell you that the 10 hours of cold-calling you’re doing every week isn’t leading to results, and you’d be better off building out the focus group strategy instead.

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For more information on the above, or for other tips, please see here.