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An Open Letter to My Boss
10 Things that You Should Tell Your Boss in Your Next Open Letter to Him
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- April 14th, 2016
Dear boss,
Since I started working for you, there are so many thing that I wanted to tell you on so many occasions. And some of these things aren’t really the nicest of all.
Nevertheless, I truly admire your leadership and I appreciate all the things you’ve been doing for this company. Your skills and knowledge of almost everything about the job is commendable.
Overall, I enjoyed being your employee and I’m looking forward to growing with your company…
Sincerely,
Your Employee
What you read above is an excerpt of an open letter to my boss that I wrote years ago.
Have you ever considered writing one? Pretty hard, huh?
Writing an open letter to your boss and explaining everything you felt about his leadership and the company, as a whole, is not easy.
A boss can either be loved or hated. Many employees have a bad attitude to their bosses because they see him or her as someone who just tells them what to do.
And as subordinates, we are accustomed to biting our tongue so we can keep the job that pays our bills.
As subordinates, we are accustomed to biting our tongue
But things are changing. Most CEOs and managers today understand and value the importance of collaboration and interdependence.
Because of that, several researches show that they are more open to feedbacks to improve their performance.
So, like my open letter to my boss, writing one to yours will not hurt. As a matter of fact, your boss may even appreciate and respect your for speaking your mind.
Of course, I will not leave you empty-handed. That’s why in this post, I’m going to give you 10 things that you can tell your boss in your open letter as well as what famous CEOs and managers think about it.
10 Things You Can Include in Your “Open Letter to My Boss”
1. Stuffs that Are not Working — and How You Can Make it Better
“My employees are in the trenches and live the business operations day in and day out. I want to hear from them what isn’t working. I want to give them permission to own the company’s success and their happiness at work. At the same time, I want them to tell me how it can be fixed. Always come with a problem and a solution.”
—Kristi Zuhlke Kimball
2. Things that You Want Your Boss to Stop Doing
“Most companies, including ours, innovate and improve through addition. Employees are regularly bringing up ideas of what we could add to our products or operations that would make the company better. I wish employees would also tell me what we should stop doing (innovation through subtraction). What can we remove that would make us a better company? “
3. Which New Policies, Programs, Technologies or Practices Work and Which Ones Don’t
“Worker productivity has been growing by about 2% annually since WWII. But if staffers aren’t equipped with competitive tech, your team will fall behind the competition. I love it when team members keep me informed of new performance-enhancing options. And performance reviews are the perfect way to contextualize a conversation about the benefits of adopting new tools and methods.”
4. Things You Need So You can Become Your Best Self
“Supporting employees and providing an atmosphere and structure in which they can strive is one of the most important and challenging parts of building a business. So, regardless of how good or experienced managers are, getting your honest suggestions about how to help is invaluable.”
5. Things You Want to Do So You Can Contribute to the Business’ Success
“All CEOs want to hear that their employees have a new level of dedication to the company and feel a personal growth in day-to-day morale. But more than anything, I’m looking for employees who ask me how they can contribute to our vision because they see company success as ours. Show your boss that you see business growth as a joint endeavor.”
6. How You Look at Your Future and the Company’s
“A review is a perfect one-on-one opportunity to really talk about your goals, your future, and also the future and state of the company itself. During review season, when I’m taking a big picture perspective and examining the components of a company as parts and as a whole, every employee adds value and can contribute a different perspective to the conversation.”
—Fabian Kaempfer, Chocomize
7. Things You Really Want to Work On
“I am always looking for my employees to tell me things they would like to pursue within the company. By suggesting a project they would like to manage, it shows me their continued interest in the company. I feel confident that if it’s a project they are suggesting, then they will excel at it.”
8. How You Want to Improve
“Entrepreneurs value employees who are constantly striving to make themselves better—having a more skilled team leads to a better company. I love when my employees say, ‘I want to learn more about this,’ or ‘I really think I could help the company by moving into this area.’ It’s up to each employee to figure out how he or she can be best utilized in a growing company.”
9. What Makes You Happy
“…what I want employees to talk to me about is what makes them happy (or unhappy) in their job and life and how the company or I can help maximize that happiness. If they ask that, then they know I care.”
—John Tabis, The Bouqs Company
10. Show Gratitude — A Simple “Thank You” Can Go a Long Way
“Genuine gratitude is pretty rare in today’s society, which is a shame, but expressing real gratitude sets people apart,”
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I’m planning to write another open letter to my boss in the next few weeks. How about you? Whether it’s your first time to write one or now, I hope you’ll find these tips helpful.
Lenmark.
