{"id":217,"date":"2018-06-26T17:26:55","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T17:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielvlopes238992071.wordpress.com\/2018\/06\/26\/how-to-have-a-good-relationship-with-your-boss-when-youre-working-remotely\/"},"modified":"2025-02-28T11:25:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T19:25:28","slug":"how-to-have-a-good-relationship-with-your-boss-when-youre-working-remotely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2018\/06\/26\/how-to-have-a-good-relationship-with-your-boss-when-youre-working-remotely\/","title":{"rendered":"How to have a good relationship with your boss when you\u2019re working remotely"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Four best practices to help you work well with your boss when you don\u2019t see them face-to-face all the time.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWhat does her Slack message *really* mean?<\/em>\u201d <\/strong>It\u2019s easy to second-guess yourself when your boss pings you. You want to have a good relationship with your boss\u200a\u2014\u200abut it\u2019s not always the most natural of things. And that difficulty only increases when you\u2019re working remotely<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you don\u2019t see your boss face-to-face all the time, the room for miscommunication, misinterpretation, and misalignment expands. You can\u2019t read body language. You can\u2019t go tap your boss on the shoulder to ask a question. You can\u2019t even show her with your physical presence that you are, yes indeed, working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet maintaining a good relationship with your boss is crucial. According to Gallup<\/a>, \u201cmanagers account for at least 70% variance in employee engagement scores.\u201d You\u2019re less stressed when things are going well with your boss\u200a\u2014\u200aso you want to be particularly thoughtful about managing that relationship while you\u2019re remote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that this is a common scenario faced by 1,000+ managers in our online community for leaders from all over the world. Based on their conversations, I\u2019ve pulled a few tips on how to maintain a good relationship with a manager while working remotely<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proactively share progress<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For your manager, understanding what progress<\/a> you are making on your work is surprisingly opaque. Your manager is often juggling quite a few tasks\u200a\u2014\u200abe it working with a client or negotiating a partnership\u200a\u2014\u200aand they want to know what you\u2019re working on ideally without having to hover, check-in with you constantly, be \u201cBig Brother\u201d about it. As emphasized by our leaders, this desire to know what you\u2019re working on is only heightened when you\u2019re remote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help shine a light on this for your manager, proactively share as much detailed progress as you can. This can come in the form of writing up a bit more granularly in your bullet points in your weekly summary about the project. Or it can come in the form of you even volunteering that you send her a daily summary of what you accomplished that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping your manager understand the results you\u2019re achieving brings them a ton of ease and peace of mind to their job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Play detective about their working style<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Working well with someone has a lot to do with understanding how <\/em>they like to work. What are their preferences and habits? What\u2019s the way they\u2019re used to having things done? As a remote employee, not seeing your manager face-to-face, it\u2019s very easy to unintentionally annoy your manager or do something that isn\u2019t within their zone of what they\u2019d prefer. When you know their working style, you can better calibrate from afar how to communicate with them, work with them, and deliver above and beyond what they expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get a sense of their working style, here are some questions you can ask them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n