RULE 83

Accept that bosses are as scared as you are at times

Poor loves, they too get frightened, paranoid, lost, feel unloved, confused, at sea, vulnerable and alone. Your job is to take away your bosses’ pain, their fears and make them relax.

You are a manager and have to manage not only downwards but upwards as well. When you deal with your bosses you mustn’t ever:

• threaten
• usurp
• intimidate
• pressurize
• menace
• disrespect
• question (apart from under Rule 82)
• undermine
• ridicule.

Instead you have to support, back, encourage, comfort, console, cheer up, relieve the pressure on, be utterly dependable, take the strain, guard the fort and eventually perhaps replace them – with yourself of course.

Some bosses are so stricken with panic they are incapable of making decisions. You will have to make decisions for them and -reassure them that everything is fine – Nurse is here now and they can go and lie down.