NEW HAVEN, Conn. - According to workplace research conducted by RainmakerThinking Inc., nine out of 10 leaders, managers, and supervisors “undermanage” their employees. As a result, most employees do not get enough basic direction and support from their bosses, leading to “an undermanagement epidemic.” Bruce Tulgan, the founder of RainmakerThinking, addresses this problem in a new book,It’s Okay to Manage Your Boss(September 2010; $23.95), released by Jossey-Bass.

Tulgan says that undermanagement is very bad for the bottom line of any organization, but it is also very bad for employees. Undermanagement contributes to unnecessary problems, underutilized resources, diminished quality and productivity, as well as a wide range of personnel problems.

If most employees are being undermanaged, one way to look at the question is: What can most employees do about the problem? In his book, Tulgan reassures employees that it is absolutely critical to manage their relationships with every boss to whom they report. This is especially critical for self-starting high-performers and anyone else who wants to become a high-performer. “What managers are looking for in an employee is one who basically manages him or herself. The problem is that if you are not the boss, you need direction and feedback from the person who is. The way to seem like that magical employee who manages him or herself is actually to engage skillfully in the art of boss-managing.”

InIt’s Okay to Manage Your Boss, Tulgan uses stories from the workplace world and offers step by step techniques for: extracting a list of clear goals and a concrete timetable to accomplish them; determining the skills and tools needed to meet a manager’s expectations; taking it one boss at a time, one day at a time; earning credit and rewards in exchange for good performance; tracking your own performance every step of the way; and more. With his tips for working more effectively with managers, Tulgan emphasizes that workers can - and must - take control of their professional futures.

Copies of the book can be purchased at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, or Borders.com.

For more information on RainmakerThinking, a workplace research and training firm, visit www.rainmakerthinking.com.

Publication date:09/20/2010