What if You were Smarter than Your Boss?

[snookumsnort]

Do you find it important for your boss to be smarter than you? We work in the Accounting Department and have a manager who can't seem to understand mathematical principles even after I tried to explain in a graph. I explained it to my husband who had no trouble understanding me.

Today, we found out that we made a huge mistake that could've been corrected had she reviewed our report more thoroughly. She saw the report but didn't notice the glaring mistake. Instead, she was so concerned that the numbers were off by $1.

[Tyrfingr]

I find it more important not to show that you are smarter than your boss .

Well seriously though. Apparently being smart isn't a necessity to get you promotions, i learnt that you do with patience and hard work. And education, but that's overrated. Anyone can pass education today with all the help and retests and crap. But it's almost always the most ambitious and driven people that succeed faster. And if you are ruthless to the employees whilst kissing asses above you, and not being afraid of stealing someones idea, lying etc etc. Then it's instant Success!. Bosses are a special kind of people, and you have to learn how to handle them. There are naturally the opposite, but great bosses seem to be rare commodities. And they usually never stay, those are the kind of bosses that are really smart and seldom makes misstakes, and never blame anyone else.

Just don't expect to find a genius in every office, my oh my have i asked myself many times how someone could have hired the bosses i've encountered.

[Ricky]

I was once fired for being smarter than my boss. Seriously, the guy was a dope and didn't know what he was doing. He frequently came to me because he needed help fixing something, only then the higher up noticed that I was doing all the work. The boss panicked and fired me.

[purplefdu]

Its fairly common for a manager who has been in the same position for some time to be outpaced by newer employees below him who are more open to new ideas, have a more progressive education and open minds. This is only a problem if he's not going anywhere soon and preventing better candidates from filling his position or keeping the rest of the employees from being really useful.

[opinionatedfan]

I think we probably have all experienced this at some point. Unfortunately, in my case, the boss was related to the owner so there you go. I didn't stay at that job very long because the little dweeb drove me absolutely crazy insisting that I do things the wrong way.

[Bruce Lee]

Well, I think it is actually pretty common that regular employees are actually more knowledgable than management.

At many jobs, they give manager jobs to the ones who kiss the most butt, or have the best certification.

Just from my experience, I feel the whole system is crooked.

Bosses don't get their jobs because they are good. Just remember that!

[layla]

I don't know about that Bruce, I think it depends on the job and the person. My dad is a "boss", he's an executive officer (VP) at his job. He'll never be CEO or Pres because he doesn't kiss booty. But when they had a merger a year ago they fired EVERY executive officer except my dad, because he is that good.

[CopyCat]

I have found that sense I own my own buisness,
I can be just as dumb as I want to be...

[moo6]

I think if your boss ends up knowing your a little smarter sometimes it can be good and other times it can be bad. It really depends how you want to or if you do approach it.