In the past few weeks, I have written about how colleagues can make significant requests of each other and how a boss can approach big requests of one of their direct reports. This week, I’ll complete the cycle by thinking about how you can make a big ask of your boss.

Before discussing some specific issues, there is a general point to make. You’re probably more worried about making this request than you should be. First off, good bosses support their direct reports. If the request is reasonable, then your boss wants to say yes. Rather than thinking of what you’re doing as imposing on your boss, remember an important (if often implicit) part of any supervisor’s job description is to take care of the team.

Second, your boss is likely to be asked to do things all the time from people across the organization. Another request isn’t going to be as big a deal to them as it is to you. And even if they can’t support what you want, they’re unlikely to resent you for asking. 

When there’s something you want from your boss, it means you’re asking for one of the resources at their disposal. It could be their time, but it might also be a request for political capital (to support something you’d like to see get done), finances, or human resources. So, the request has a cost. Often, that cost is an opportunity cost. The resource given to your request can’t go somewhere else.

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