One of the most important people to use anger management techniques with is that person in your life that you struggle getting along with; the one that you warmly refer to as your boss.

You're tired. You're discouraged. You're dejected. You're unmotivated. You may feel that your boss is intimidating, meddling, scheming or hard to please.

If you’ve got a really bad boss s/he may take credit for your work, never give you any positive feedback and disrespect your time by not showing up for meetings with you or dumping a job in your lap at the end of the day that needs to be done right away.

Love him or hate him, he’s your employer. And, while in theory it’s his or her job to manage you, for you to survive on the job and to get the raises and promotions you want, you will have to learn how to manage your boss.

To get along with your supervisor you will have to get inside his/her head and respond to his/her personality traits. Basically, you need to work on learning some anger management techniques.

The first part of being able to get into someone else’s head is to be able to understand what’s going on in your head. How do you feel about authority figures? How do you feel when somebody who knows less about your job than you is telling you what to do? What are your hot buttons? How open are you to start seeing and dealing with your boss in a different way?

Understanding your emotional strengths and weaknesses is the most important part of learning to manage your supervisor. I am going to provide you with some very simple and direct anger management techniques to deal with your boss, but unless you are able to control your own feelings, you are not going to be able to use the tips I give you very effectively.

So be sure to take the time to understand yourself as much as you can. You might even want to think about taking an anger management class because it will focus on helping you understand your triggers and show you ways to manage them in ways that will keep you calm and focused.

How the World Looks Through Your Boss’s Eyes

In your eyes your manager may look all powerful (or extremely weak) but, unless your supervisor owns the company s/he probably spends most of his or her time feeling stuck in the middle. Your boss has a boss to answer to and oftentimes doesn’t have as much power as you may think. If your boss owns the company, s/he has many bosses – the customers – who need to be kept happy or the business goes under. So, rule number one is to remember that your supervisor really isn’t the boss.

Rule number two is that your employer is only as good as you are. You are as much the key to his/her success as they are to yours. Different people react to this in different ways. Some become very dictatorial and bark out orders, some become overly perfectionist – nothing is ever good enough, others become very passive and provide very little guidance, some are up and down and then there is the occasional boss who is actually a leader that is firm, but inspiring. What words would you use to describe your employer's management style?

So, even though it may not feel like it to you, your manager and you are interdependent. The more one of you succeeds the more the other will too.

Despite the fact that your share a dependence with your boss; s/he is your boss and by definition sets the terms of the work environment. In other words, it is not likely to change. In fact, if there is a problem between the two of you the boss is more likely to see it as being because of you, not him or her. This is not a battle you are going to win by doing things the way you have been doing, you are going to have to be the one that makes the changes. So, instead of trying to change your boss, learn what his or her needs are and try to meet them.

Understand Your Boss’s Needs

What do I mean by this?

• Anger Management Technique #1: Try to figure out what your boss wants from an employee. How much communication and feedback on your work does s/he need? Every day? Every week? What type of communication works best – in person, e-mail, formal meetings, or informal chats on the fly? The more you can anticipate and respond to your boss’s style the more open s/he will be to you.

• Anger Management Technique #2: Be reliable. Reach goals or complete jobs when you say (or are told) you will do it. If there is a problem with the job you are working on let him or her know right away and ask for advice. Many people avoid telling the boss bad news but this is like burying your head in the sand. Eventually your boss will find out and is more likely to be upset than if you had gone to him/her first and asked for advice.

• Anger Management Technique #3: The smoothest road at work is to shift your priority from making yourself happy to making your manager happy. What does your boss worry about? What are his/her priorities? What can you do to help? Put importance in your work to match his/her priorities. Believe it or not, the happier your supervisor is the happier you will be.

• Anger Management Technique #4: What does your boss do well? There are good and bad things about every boss. Unfortunately, for most of us it’s easier to focus on the bad. Think about the impact this has on your attitude towards your boss. Find the good things and at a minimum make sure they get about the same attention as the bad. Sometimes it helps to sit down and make a list.

• Anger Management Technique #5: Let your boss teach you. Many people feel that they know more about their job and know what needs to be done than their manager does. And, in some cases this is true. But your manager became a manager for a reason and so probably has something you can learn from him/her. So, ask questions to learn and listen more than you speak (you’ll never make someone feel good about you quicker than by asking questions about their careers) to create a successful association with your manager.

• Anger Management Technique #6: Ask for feedback. Make your boss feel like a boss. Give him or her a chance to give you some praise to bolster his or her ego by making suggestions on how you can do better. Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn - make sure s/he knows what you’ve done.

Following these anger management techniques is sure to make your life with your supervisor much easier.