Ask Christa! My Boss Is Stuck. Do I Have to Be Stuck, Too? (S5E53)

Introduction

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and today’s listener question is one about managing YOUR growth when your manager isn’t managing THEIR growth, and any worry you may have that your manager’s career stall-out might become your own.

Listener Question

Here’s the listener question: “I’m early in my career, about five years into a communications role where I partner with HR for employee communications and contribute to corporate communications for investor calls. I’ve been in the same role for three years, and I’m becoming frustrated because there’s a lot more I can do, a lot more I want to do, and a lot more I want to learn. I have spoken about this to my manager twice this year, communicating that I want to do more and learn more. The first time was earlier in the year, and his answer was we’d have to ‘see how the year goes.’ The second time was yesterday, and his answer was that our company isn’t promoting anyone this year, so I’ll have to wait. He then mentioned how everyone feels stuck right now, including him. And that’s a direct quote. 

“What frustrates me the most is that I’m not asking for a promotion. I understand the circumstances of our company right now, but I do want to feel more challenged. Your episode 48 about feeling underutilized really hit home for me. I feel exactly as you said: burnt out from feeling underutilized. I simply want to do more work and feel more challenged while I’m doing the work, but my boss is stuck and I’m afraid that means I’m stuck, too. I thought I should ask Christa, so I’m asking for help. What advice do you have for me to continue growing even if my boss is stuck?” 

The Manager Role with Career Growth and Development

Let’s talk first about the role your manager has in your career growth and development, because there’s no question that your manager will have a big impact. That said, your manager isn’t the ONLY one at work who has an impact on your career growth and development prospects. Additionally, there will be times when your manager may not know HOW to help you with career growth and development, OR, they may be grappling so much with their own situation, that they simply cannot help you as you would hope—or, probably as they would like.  It sounds like our listener gets along well enough with their boss, but their boss is missing the point of the question. 

The question is about needing to feel more challenged at work, taking on different and more work, and feeling better utilized overall. And yet, our listener’s manager is answering a question about a promotion. BUT! While expanding your work load to feel more challenged and to develop more skills could LEAD to a promotion, our listener is very clearly not asking for a promotion—at least not now. And that IS frustrating… 

It’s also a common challenge when it comes to management—that any ask to do more is interpreted as wanting a promotion, so if I were to wager a guess with my experience behind me, the manager’s answer about whether a promotion is feasible is because a promotion is clearly on his mind: either because he WANTS to give our listener a promotion, or because HE wants a promotion, or for any other reason why “promotion” is part of what he is hearing.

Managers have a wide scope of responsibilities, though, and at the top of the list are the hardest aspects of being a good human: keeping people aligned, engaged, performing, and yes… developed.

But… you don’t always need your manager to do those things, and if you’re a self-directed person, as our listener seems to be, there are options to consider.

Career Growth Can Be Less Formal Than You Think

For starters, there ARE different ways to grow and develop in a role. Sometimes it’s on a more formal level, and that likely requires a discussion and approval with your manager, like taking professional development courses, or expanding your role and responsibilities, OR taking on more decision-making tasks. And yes- as you develop, you will need to discuss a promotion, too. But that typically comes after you’ve proven you’re ready for it. 

But if you feel like your manager’s stagnation is impacting YOUR growth, or causing your own stagnation—and that happens—there are less formal ways to grow and develop as a professional, both as part of your role, or even outside of your role… and as part of your company or even outside of your company.

I encourage and advise everyone to expand their thinking when it comes to what career growth and development looks like. Where do you want to go next? What else do you want to do? Do you have the skills and experience to do it now as an expanded part of your role? Or will you need to develop those specific skills and gain that experience? That gives you the best roadmap—and some organized priority—for where you want to grow and where you need to develop.

For our listener, if it’s about expanding your involvement so you can learn more, then have an informal discussion with your internal HR partners and determine whether you can increase your communications support to them. Maybe there’s an opportunity to develop a management training module to enable managers to improve in that area. (communication is ALWAYS an ongoing aspect of management development).

Look outside of work also: can you volunteer somewhere and practice higher-level skills at low risk? It’s low risk BECAUSE you are volunteering, and as long as you hit the mark, which a growth and learning mindset will always be able to do, you’ve started to expand your skillset. And if that’s the path you take, then check if your organization offers the benefit of using a certain number of work hours each year toward volunteering. That will enable a solve for feeling underutilized at work AND offer opportunities to grow and develop.

AND! Culture Matters: Three Things in a Growth and Development Culture

And since we’re talking about the workplace and how FORMAL your career growth and development opportunities might be… obviously organizational culture matters. I didn’t start with this because I wanted to get right into addressing the question, but most times I would START with this.

There are a lot of organizations that do not place attention or support toward employee growth and development—or then measure that growth and development to quantify the impact your good humans have on the performance of your business. 

I know… makes no sense… 

So, look for the growth and development companies. They are the ones interested in remaining at their top potential, they are the ones interested in innovation from the inside out, and they are the ones who repeatedly score higher for performance and overall employee engagement.

There are typically three things that stand out when an organization ACTUALLY cares about employee growth and development, and I’d look for these during the interview process:

Number 1: Growth and career development is front and center on the company’s website, and you can see more details in their Benefits section; even better if you see this mentioned in the actual job description

Number 2: Growth and career development is talked about by the interviewer during the interview—meaning, you don’t have to ask about it. They do.

Number 3? If you DO have to ask, you hear an immediate, confident answer that includes instant examples of what it looks like and what to expect in your first year of employment, followed by something that sounds a bit like, “I’m glad you brought that up; with the limited time we have, I wanted to focus on the role, but yes, we talk about and take seriously the need to offer career growth and development opportunities.”

The Meaning of a Growth and Development Culture

Now, a growth and development culture doesn’t mean everyone receives a promotion every year, or that you can take an endless number of courses and attend sessions that expand your knowledge. 

It means growth and development is part of how the organization WORKS. There are mechanisms in place to learn about a variety of growth and development options, like rotational opportunities where you bring your skillsets into a different function, or more formal ways of elevating your skills with formal training followed by practicing the new skills in your role. 

It also means employees are encouraged to actively think about what they can do to expand their own competencies, or what they’re really good at, as well as how that expansion can and will change the way they do their work. Bonus points for the company that has language around all of this so the good humans working there can talk about how to expand skills, knowledge, and experience, then apply those new skills, knowledge, and experience into the company thereby elevating the COMPANY’s way of working.

AND… yes, there are also promotional pathways so that as employees contribute at a higher level, thereby improving the performance of the organization, there are ways to increase responsibilities and be properly recognized and compensated for it.

Additional Resources

For your resources, located in the show notes, first up: an excellent article in Harvard Business Review written by Carter Cash and published in January 2018. It’s called, “6 Ways to Take Control of Your Career Development If Your Company Doesn’t Care About It.”  Ouch.  That’s a flex--- and I love it.

The article focuses more on how to best align with the organization you’re presently in, and that’s because the point of the article is to develop yourself while there and based on the value you can create while there—but all of the tips in the article are transferrable to ANY aspect of life where you want to grow and develop.

Next up: an article from The National Society of Leadership Success called “Career Development 101: A complete guide to processional growth,” which I also provided in Episode 49 which answered the listener question, “How should I be thinking about career growth?” The article offers clarity and a step-wise approach to developing a roadmap for your professional growth, which I think is not only appropriate for this episode, but also for so many professionals seeking guidance in this area of our professional lives. I’m not affiliated with the NSLS, but I do like that they offer several resources as links within the article, and it’s a solid article.

Last, a great read called “5 practical ways to take professional development into your own hands.” It’s on the Insight Experience site, and written by one of their team members, Bethany Bremer. It was written in September 2022, and back then we were in a very different economic and job market situation, but nearly all of the article still holds. I’m not affiliated with Insight Experience, but as with the NSLS article, I found it to offer an excellent source for perspective as well as additional resources.

Wrap Up & Submitting Your Questions

And that’s a wrap for episode 53 in Season FIVE, focused on Career Growth! 

You can submit YOUR question on my show’s site, AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H, where you will see all my episodes listed based on category and season. While your there—sign up for my More Answers… newsletter, where you will receive additional content on Sunday nights to set you up for the work week.

Thank you for your support, as always. And remember, if you have a business challenge or a workplace issue—Ask Christa!