What about employees who have bad managers?
You can influence your manager’s perception of you more than you think you can. Every manager has priorities that take up the vast majority of their time. To the extent that you’re recognized by that manager as someone who makes their life easier, helping them to advance their brand, you are in with them. Promoted into an assistant personnel manager job, I was working for a white guy who had been demoted to personnel manager who was working for a store manager who had also been demoted. Both had admitted–to my face–that they didn’t think black people were smart. I felt that I didn’t have a chance. But my customer service scores went up and my boss got credit. He started to get accolades for things I was doing, so I became this invaluable resource. Our relationship switched. He might have thought I was the exception, but it didn’t matter, he promoted me. I worked for someone everyone in the organization thought was a monster, yet he advocated my abilities. Whether I was invited to his house was immaterial. I wanted to get ahead; he was the ticket. I needed him to look good for him to be my advocate. That’s the key to your success.
So, it’s inaccurate to say, “There’s nothing I can do to please my boss.â€
It’s inaccurate 90% of the time. The vast majority of us aren’t even conscious that we’re not doing what our bosses would require, because we haven’t been taught how. There are a lot of people who choose to let their managers limit them emotionally. What would make your boss happy? “Well, I can’t do that; they don’t like me.†I didn’t ask if they liked you. What’s their priority that if you did it well would thrill them? You don’t have to be liked to be respected.