How to ask your boss for more autonomy and flexibility

Some people like to have a rigid schedule. They like to know where to go and what to do at every minute of the day. They like to have their tasks laid out for them and to have clear processes to follow.

Many people, though, feel stifled by work that is too constraining. These folks like to have some ability to direct their efforts. Indeed, having a feeling of agency can help you to feel good about the work you’re doing. Taking more responsibility for your work puts more responsibility on you, but it can pay off in feeling more invested in what you do.

If you fall into the latter category and want to have more opportunities to decide what you’re going to work on and how you are going to accomplish your key goals, then you’re going to need to get your boss onboard.Here’s the best way to frame your request.

Start with a trial run

Whenever you ask for something from your boss, you have to understand their goals. Your boss probably wants you to develop your skills, because your advancement will reflect well on their leadership. So, you’re unlikely to get a lot of pushback about the idea of having more independence.

At the same time, your boss is responsible for ensuring that the tasks of your unit are done well. If you have been operating largely by carrying out tasks you have been assigned, then your boss may not know whether you can handle the responsibility of working independently. In particular, there are three questions your boss will ultimately need answers to.

• Do you know all the steps required to complete a task?
• Will you complete what needs to be done on time?
• Will you do the work with the appropriate level of quality?

In the weeks leading up to asking for additional autonomy, gather evidence related to these issues. To the extent that you can document that your boss isn’t risking much by allowing you to work independently, you’re making it easier for them to say “yes.”

Still, your initial request should be for a limited amount of time. In general, a great way to get something from your boss is to start with a request that has some constraints. For example, you can ask to work independently on a particular project and to evaluate how well that went before deciding on giving you broader autonomy.

Practice prioritizing

A second key dimension of working independently is selecting which tasks need to get done and ensuring that they are completed on time. That means you need to learn to prioritize tasks effectively.

Often, your early work is reactive. You have a to-do list and you knock off elements on that list as they come up. Typically, your first roles in a company also involve a lot of just-in-time work. You may be working directly with a customer or fulfilling a particular order.

As you move up in the organization, the time frame over which things must be completed gets longer. (For instance, in my current role as a university administrator, I oversee some projects that won’t be completed for years.) It’s easy to let projects that don’t have immediate deadlines slip and to wait until things become emergencies before devoting a lot of effort to them.

While you clearly need to make sure that you don’t drop an important ball, you also need to show that you can ensure that long-term projects get enough attention that they continue to progress. You need to develop strategies that fit with your work style to ensure that key steps of long-term tasks get done regularly. Practice developing these priorities for your agenda. Document what you’re doing so that you can show your boss as you request more autonomy.

Ask for mentoring

Continuing with the theme of solving your boss’s problems, your boss wants you to have autonomy, but also wants to know that you will develop the skills you need to be more effective as an independent agent.

To that end, you want to set up a mentoring plan. If you like your boss’s work style, then you can ask them to meet with you regularly to get answer to key questions about prioritizing, breaking tasks down into manageable chunks, and checking the quality of your own work.

If you feel that there are other people who might be more compatible with the way you’d prefer to work, then develop a mentoring plan and give it to your boss. That way they know that you’re going to be getting help from someone to help you navigate a less structured job role, and they’re likely to be more amenable to giving you the flexibility you want.