How to Bond with Your Boss Having a good relationship with your boss has a positive impact on your career. According to rese

How to Bond with Your Boss
    Good morning, everybody. Since you are graduating this summer, today, I’d like to give you a lecture about how to bond with your boss. You may encounter different types of supervisors at work but there are a few golden rules of being an all-star employee.  I will illustrate my points in five aspects.
    Bonding with your boss isn’t something most of us consider imperative to excelling at the office. But having a good relationship with your supervisor has the ability to positively impact the path of your career. A study found that a negative work environment leads to high employee turnover rates and researchers at NYU found that employee productivity is directly linked to his or her relationships with superiors.
    So if you haven’t quite buddied up to your boss—now’s your chance. We have some strategic ways to do just that, straight from the horse’s mouth. Here are five real-life strategies for forging a bond with your superiors at the office.
    First, be authentic and communicate.
    "My favorite employees are the ones I can be real with. That is what makes an employee stand out; no nonsense, no excuses and no tiptoeing around each other," says Nicole Caldwell, an editor and small business owner. "If I can’t have lunch with an employee, laugh with, be there for them and also push them to constantly improve, it makes working together significantly less fun. "
    Being real with your boss also means being comfortable giving and receiving constructive criticism. "The most valued talent of an employee is their ability to receive coaching and feedback and implement the suggestions," says Dr. Jennifer Freed, a family behavioral specialist.
    It’s important to remember that your boss is a mentor and should push you to grow. And feedback should be a two-way street. Many employees think pushing back will hurt their reputation, but the opposite seems to be true. Managers value the fact that you can voice concerns and work towards creating an environment that is more conducive to creating quality work.
    Second, take advantage of opportunities to socialize.
    If your company has fun social events for the purpose of allowing coworkers to mix and mingle, be sure to attend. These are prime opportunities for you to socialize with your boss and develop a friendly repertoire. "You spend so much of your life at work, it just seems ridiculous to me to not work around people whom you actually enjoy," Caldwell says.
    Office happy hours, holiday parties and sports leagues help alleviate any social awkwardness and make it easier to navigate the crossing of certain social boundaries with your employer. The activities will allow you to get to know your boss outside of an office setting, which will foster a deeper relationship beyond that of just an employee and employer.
    There is a rule of thumb for this aspect; keep conversational topics light. Don’t go fishing for insider company information or use a happy hour as an excuse to bash another coworker. And of course, go easy on the booze.
    Third, don’t overshare. Along with not prying too much into your boss’s personal life comes not oversharing tidbits about your own.  It’s great to feel like you’re getting closer to your boss, but be careful about getting too friendly. When it comes to the employee/employer relationship, some topics should remain off limits. This is especially true when your relationship with your boss is a new one. Don’t divulge too much information about ridiculously personal stuff to someone who really doesn’t need to know. You want a healthy line in the sand of how much you want to share up-front with someone you just started working for. The key to a good working relationship is finding the balance between connecting on a personal level and sharing details about your life, while avoiding divulging too much. It’s important to note that finding this balance will look different based on the work environment. When in doubt, stick to topics that you know toe the line.
    Fourth, focus on work first. You can be the most charismatic person in the office, but no employer is going to like you if you’re not delivering quality work. If you want to buddy up to your boss, the first step is to earn their respect, and the easiest way to do this is to go above and beyond the work expected of you.To achieve that, always keep the end goal in mind and do what’s required to accomplish that end goal, rather than just what was initially assigned. While being friends is great, have your priorities in line. You have to know when to turn off the "good time" attitude, and get to work.
    And the last one, think about how you can support your boss.
    Instead of constantly looking for what your boss can do for you, think instead about how you can make your boss’s job easier.
    Most employees are thinking about what they can get from the job and their boss instead of what they can give to the job and how they can support the efforts of their boss. Employees that consistently make an effort towards what would be good for the company, and how they can back up the vision of the boss, are the employees that are favored.
    Being proactive and self-sufficient allows your boss to see you as a peer, rather than an employee that needs to be managed.
    Being someone your boss can rely on goes a long way, and having a shared vision will bring you closer. It’ll allow you to develop a stronger bond over a shared interest in the work.
    To summarize, clearly, the relationship you have with your employer plays a large role in career success. And beyond being good for your career, a little office bonding is also important for your physical and mental health. So put the five suggestions I have given you in mind and wish you good luck in your future career. Thank you.