Approaching your boss to deliver bad news can be a very scary situation. Many things may run through your head such as how will the boss take it, what will the reaction be, will the consequences on me be severe just for being the messenger.

Hopefully the boss you are approaching doesn't have the "shoot the messenger" attitude, but too many times bosses will take things out on whoever is standing in front of them whether or not that person has anything to do with the bad news being delivered.

The first thing you need to do is assess the severity of the bad news you are delivering. How bad is it? Did the company just go under, did his right hand man just quit or is there a dog in the building. Assess the problem and the severity then based on that judge how you should break the news.

The more severe of the problem, the more open you want the setting to be. If you are fearing, because the news is so bad, that the boss may "lose it" then go somewhere public to break the news. A nice public setting usually can calm a raging mood because people generally don't want to make a scene. Whatever you do, you want to break the news in person and not over the phone because if you do it over the phone then you could catch a brunt of the anger when you are actually seen face to face. So always step up and do it face to face.

If the bad news is not so severe, you don't need necessarily to think it through as much. Just be honest with the boss without a flinch and without hesitation. You'll gain respect in their eye's if they see you as an honest unflinching person even when it comes to delivering not so good news. Keep your shoulders back and head high as if to say I don't care how you take this, you need to know.

Anyway you look at it delivering the bad news to the boss can be quite intimidating. But if you get afforded the task, don't sweat and as Nike would say, just do it!

Learn more about this author, Chad Foster.
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