Why Do Bosses Know Much of What We've Not Shared?

A croupier from a shutdown casino walked into the interview room of a commodities trading company. They were interviewing for a supervisor's job and Peter had made the shortlist.

The panel of five managers invited Peter in whilst they perused his CV for a few minutes.

"Tell us how your casino experience can help our business", posed one panellist. And with a calm demeanour, Peter answered: "Customers at a casino require the house's diligence in ensuring fairness when dealing, and likewise, your customers here require accurate quantities of the stuff your company trade's in, my role in your company is to ensure that customers get what you promise".

Peter impressed the interviewers with all his answers and just when he was leaving the room, Antony asked him: "how is Gloria?", "say a big hello to her".

A surprised Peter promised to pass the regards and later on, he learned from his wife Gloria, that Peter was once her boss at her present company. Gloria had always spoken well of Peter and appreciated that he'd work long hours to keep the family happy.

Peter was hired largely because of what Gloria had shared about him.

Bosses know much more than we think they do, and most times, they never let you know that they are in the picture. Bosses are meant to use information about juniors responsibly and especially privileged information. Bad bosses use privileged information to blackmail their juniors into submission.

Bosses get to know a lot about juniors because many colleagues are whistleblowers seeking an edge over fellow workmates. Information is what nourishes office politics. Power and influence is a much sought after advantage and many are silently in that race. The boss finds himself or herself receiving plenty of information if they are the gossipy kind. They literally apply the maxim, 'information is power'.

Besides learning about us based on what we demonstrate in the course of duty, bosses want to know more about us on the encouragement of senior management. When forward-planning, certain traits become necessary for one's upward mobility. Management will be seeking for tiebreakers between two or more potentially suitable employees for promotion to bigger roles.

This may entail deep dives into who employees of interest are.

Bosses want to know more about juniors sometimes for selfish reasons. In environments characterised by high unemployment, demonstrated loyalty is highly valued. Bosses become gods to whom loyalty is pledged repeatedly. In such situations, when privileged information is used against a junior whose loyalty is deemed below par, the threat of joblessness may cause the employee to yield to unprofessional demands placed on him or her by the domineering boss.

In environments characterised by the abundance of jobs, people seek upward mobility and here, bosses are less likely to make outrageous demands in the crude manner seen in the previous paragraph. Suttle passes on staff will be made by sly bosses and when complaints get lodged, they simply claim that they were misunderstood. But temptable juniors will fall for the cues and possibly partake in the pleasures of the forbidden fruit. Some bosses will dig up personal information from multiple sources to tame the "vichwa ngumus".

In both environments discussed above, different career-limiting moves apply. And either way, they are somewhat information-driven. They stem from the boss knowing something or wanting to know something about a junior.

Good bosses use information to grow and build juniors into better people. Some go as far as recommending their good staff to other organisations when no upward mobility is forthcoming internally.

Such bosses make great mentors and lifelong friends. If you find them, cherish them.

Always remember that any insitution you work for, is in itself an information-seeking outfit. Le them know that you are professional.