How To Impress Your Boss In 10 Easy Steps

Impressing your boss can sometimes feel like an impossible task. You feel like you work hard, but just aren’t getting noticed. It’s an understandable point of anxiety. You want to be confident that your boss knows they can rely on you and you want to be assured that you have a future with your employer.

Well, believe it or not, there are actually plenty of ways to impress your boss that don’t involve bribing your boss with chocolates or otherwise looking like a brown nose.

Every job is a little different, so there will always be different approaches to this goal, but the common denominator is this: make your boss’s life easier and you’ll be sure to impress them.

In this blog, we’ll explore 10 easy steps to impress your boss.

10 Easy steps to impressing your boss

1. Get to know your boss

Get to know your boss’s preferences. Structure your communication and deliver your work in the way your boss prefers. For example,

Is your boss a “details” person? Prepare for your conversations by gathering detailed analysis and prognosis.
Or are they more of a hands-off, big-picture manager? Then focus your interaction on the overview of projects and save the details for your own work.
Do they prefer a more business-style, result-oriented approach? Or do they prioritize process and employee happiness?

Fitting your interactions to your boss’s style will set them at ease and make you stand out as a like-minded ally in the office.

2. Understand that your boss may be stressed

If your boss isn’t responding in the way you wish, remember they may be busy with other duties managing the team or interacting with upper management and doing their own work.

Remember, you are one of their many priorities. They may only be able to think about you when you show up to a meeting and stop thinking about you when the meeting ends.

“If your manager does seem anxious or overwhelmed, try asking, ‘How can I help you?’ People forget how far that simple question can go to engender a connection.”
- Romy Newman, co-founder of the career website Fairygodboss.

3. Show them you’re a team player

“Teamwork makes the dream work”, goes the saying. At work, you have one common goal: to provide a product or a service to others. The goal is easier to attain when your team works together. A team player isn’t just a doormat who just does what they are told without asking questions. Rather, actively participates in improving the group. They ask questions, provide input, understand how to give and receive constructive criticism, and know how to effectively communicate.

Be an active listener
Offer constructive criticism
Learn to accept criticism without being defensive or emotional
Learn to communicate effectively, clearly, and promptly
Learn when to back down

4. Own your job

Taking ownership at work means being proactive. It means understanding the significance of your tasks in achieving company goals. Hold yourself accountable for your work and demonstrate a genuine interest in the company's success. For example,

Take on tasks before being asked. Anticipate challenges, create solutions, ask for clarification when needed, and work ahead.
Seeing yourself as a significant part of a team, rather than a cog in an anonymous system will help you motivate yourself about your job duties.
Remind yourself of the goals that led you to take on this job in the first place. This could be gaining experience or advancing through promotion.

5. Work smarter, not harder

“Work smarter, not just harder, lad,” is not just a great quote from Scrooge McDuck, it’s a foundational principle of an efficient work system. It also makes you a valuable asset to your boss. Follow these steps to work smarter:

Batch activities. Group tasks in chunks to improve productivity. Instead of answering every email as it comes in, schedule time to check and respond to emails. Set meetings back-to-back and block time for activities that require thought and concentration like research, writing, or brainstorming.
Leverage your internal clock. The time of day you work on certain types of tasks impacts your productivity. Everyone experiences three productivity phases over the course of a day: peak, trough, and rebound. At our peak, we're the most focused – a perfect time for analytical tasks. At our lowest point (the trough), it's time to focus on creative tasks.
Cut down your to-do list. Starting the day with a massive unrealistic to-do list will not only make you unproductive, but you'll also feel like you’re setting yourself up for failure. Begin with your most important tasks and limit the list to three to five items.
Track your time and review your productivity. If you don't know how and where you're wasting time, try tracking everything you do for a few days. This can be as simple as keeping a running list on paper of what you do during the day and how long it takes. Reviewing your progress often will help you identify what's working and what's not.

6. Be an idea person

As the HR website plum.io puts it, “Idea people are creative problem solvers. They are the ones determining ways to fit square pegs into round holes.” Each year employers are seeking more and more “idea people” to fill the voids of creativity and alternative thinking. An idea person thinks outside the box to offer solutions to challenges, rather than simply bemoaning the problems that present themselves at work.

Andrew Boynton, the co-author of the book The Idea Hunter, says, “Great business ideas…come to those who are in the habit of looking for great ideas”. He offers a path to becoming an idea person, named appropriately “IDEA”.

Interest: Be intellectually curious.
Diversity: Break out of your routines and look for ideas from a wide range of sources.
Exercise: Consistently immerse yourself in new ideas and associate with other idea people.
Agile: Be prepared to change, adapt, and rethink your ideas.

7. Embrace a positive attitude

Nobody likes a whiner. That’s especially true at work. In particular, managers have little patience for employees who would rather complain or describe every issue in the most negative light. Finding ways to be positive in both attitude and tone will make you someone your boss will enjoy working with. Try these steps:

Use positive reframing strategies: Notice the good in a situation. Is there something we can gain or learn from a challenge? Use positive language: “problems” are burdens, but “challenges” are solvable.
Focus on what you can control: complaining about the insurmountable isn’t constructive, but see if there is some smaller aspect of a challenge that you can do something about.
Think of the bigger picture: keeping a larger perspective of the company’s goals will help you see if there is something to be gained by facing a challenge or if there is even a different way of approaching an issue.
Be kind. Remember that everyone at the office is in it together, working toward the same goal. Be kind in your responses to coworkers. It goes a long way.

8. Honor your boss’s time

This one is pretty straightforward. Your time is valuable, but so is your boss’s. So keep this in mind:

Be punctual. Don’t be late for work or meetings. Don’t make people wait on you.
Be responsive. If your boss sends you a request, get back to them asap. They’re planning a variety of things. Don’t hold up their next steps.
Be quick. Deadlines are there for a reason. Employees that finish their tasks on time can be trusted with more responsibility in the future.

9. Think about budgets

Always think about ways to save your company money or time. Is there a more efficient way to structure processes? Are there design optimizations available that could cut costs? Are there redundancies that management might not be seeing? Every company’s objective is to make a profit. Demonstrating that your priority is to help your company succeed will help you stand out as a valued member of the team.

10. Keep track of everything you're working on

An often overlooked, but absolutely essential step to impressing your boss is tracking your assignments and progress. The last thing your boss wants to hear is, “I forgot to do that.”

Whenever your boss hands you a task, always note it in your calendar with the due dates, especially if there are multiple parts. If your boss asks you for a status update, you'll be prepared. Along the way, provide your boss with a status update before they have to check in with you. By keeping your boss informed about task progress, you free them up to focus on their own tasks.

Expert Tip

Use an app to track your work

If your office doesn't use a software platform to track activities, consider using one yourself to make note of your tasks and progress. There are plenty of options like Capterra, Asana, Monday, Work Diary.

If you don't like apps, go old school and keep a written diary!

Summary

It doesn't pay to be a suck-up. If you want to impress your boss, just give consideration to what impression you make. Are you an obvious team player? Are you positive, punctual, and proactive? If so, you can make sure your boss sees how valuable you are to the team.

For more career advice, check out the many other blogs on ZipJob covering a variety of topics.

Written by

Robert Lyons, Freelance Writer

As a freelance writer, Robert has covered technology, travel, arts, the entertainment industry, and career development. Originally from the Midwest, he has lived in L.A. and Berlin but now is based in New York.