I know I musn't manage my boss, but is there anything I can do?

Hi,

I have been in post as an individual contributor in a small team for four months now. I am enjoying the job and have settled in well.

The organisation is only seven members of staff - an Executive Director, who works remotely and mostly on strategic issues and oversees the Deputy director who runs the office and in turn oversees the remaining five individuals contributors.

Each of the five of us have our own specialist areas (mine is Media and Marketing) but we overlap on a number of projects.

The issue I have is that my boss (the Deputy Director) is disorganised and poor at assigning and delegating tasks. In particular, the communication of priorities is a real problem.

About every month to six weeks (but with no predictable regularity) she produces a list of tasks/projects we should each be working on. As we are a small non-profit/charitable organisation, there is inevitably more work than can ever be done, yet it is almost all allocated regardless. Other tasks are also assigned at random with no indication as to how they fit in to this wider agenda and how important a priority they are.

After the last such list was provided, my boss told me not to worry as everything never all gets done and highlighted one project that was scheduled for April. She told me that this never gets done in April and we'd probably get it done by June sometime. As this was down as my responsibility - with input from the team - I was less than pleased.

I planned this task and produced what I could on my own and requested the necessary contributions from the other team members. I have had a limited response but feel I will have no backing from my boss if I try to chase them up, as she has made it clear their is no pressure to meet the hypothetical deadline - which passed weeks ago.

To an extent, if the management wish to run the team badly, that is their business. However, I was recently called up on for not having yet completed a task which I had ranked as low priority, but was told afterwards should have been a top priority. With such a lack of lead as to what my priorities should be I feel frustrated to be then criticised for not meeting them.

I know from listening to the casts over recent years that I mustn't try to get the boss to change to suit me. I'm also conscious of trying to change too much in the organisation so soon in to my post. I like the organisation and want it to be better. Ultimately, there is a limit as to how long I can tolerate working in such an ineffective manner as I do not feel able to deliver my true professional output level in such conditions.

Is there anything I can do at all?

Many thanks,

Kevin