Works
- Managing Your Boss, Harvard Business Review, 1980
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
Managing your boss. Gabarro and Kotter define managing your boss as consciously working with your superior to obtain the best possible results for you, the boss, and the company. They treat the relationship as one of mutual dependence between two fallible people, which works when the subordinate understands the boss's goals, pressures, and working style, and is dependable and honest in return.
What it explains
Gabarro and Kotter explain why a subordinate's influence depends on a working relationship with the boss built over time: understanding the boss's pressures and being dependable and honest earns the trust that lets a subordinate's proposals be heard. The article is practitioner advice in Harvard Business Review.