Indian bosses are very ‘collectivist’ and are low in ‘individualism’ in their thinking, identifying with a family, caste, religious group—and their employer—although again, things are changing as the economy continues to grow, and especially in the high technology sector. The diaspora of many Indians to Britain and US means that managerial habits are changing, but Indians hang on to their culture despite integration into a new country. The Indian boss in a western company is quite capable of being western in appearance during the working day but very traditionally Indian when at home. He’s risk-averse in so far that he’s extremely concerned with job security and continuity, and ‘uncertainty-avoiding’ and blame-avoiding and not doing the wrong thing.

Thinking about managing your boss requires, first, thoughts about bosses as a class of individuals. That knowledge will assist in the boss-management process. Successful boss-management starts where the boss is—new, been-there-awhile-, on the way out, inside appointment or outside appointment, etc. In general, bosses have a lot of ‘classic’ problems—as opposed to unique ones driven by the boss’ particular personality. The goal of boss-management is to help the boss look good by actually being good, not to make the boss like you.

The first, and overall problem is to get a sense of the bosses style. Some are talkers, some like to read ideas first and then talk. Some are decisive decision makers, some like “to think about it”. Some are big picture thinkers, while others are tree huggers.

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