If you feel like your boss is a pro at micromanaging, or loves to get into disagreements with you and your colleagues to show his or her dominance, having a manager who keeps his or her distance may seem like a pretty good problem to have. However, if you’re not getting the attention you need from your boss, that means he or she is not likely noticing the work you do, giving you credit for your achievements, or is not available for consultation to help get you to your next promotion. So what do you do if you have a boss that is “checked out,” or won’t help you advance in your career?
Ask Your Boss for More of the Work you Want to do
We ARE telling you to ask your boss for more work. However, don’t ask for just any kind of work. Tell your boss what kind of work you enjoy and explain why you’re the right person to do it. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do more with your days at work — but don’t make it your manager’s responsibility to figure out how you’ll fill those gaps,” says personal finance writer Maurie Backman at The Motley Fool. “Rather, you should come in with suggestions so your boss doesn’t need to be burdened with it.”
Employees who consistently meet or exceed their goals and then go above and beyond to support their coworkers usually get noticed. If you have never taken initiative in your day-to-day tasks, your manager might not think you want anything more than what you have.
Find a Mentor
Sometimes, getting some outside input from a neutral party about your performance, aspirations and current relationship with your boss can be helpful. Forbes contributor Pauleanna Reid recommends a little self-reflection when looking for a mentor. She says your mentor should be able to provide resources, tasks, and feedback to you. This person should do more than just take you to lunch, and chat over coffee.
“Depending on the nature of your relationship with your mentor and the level of dedication involved, you will need to make sacrifices for your success,” Reid writes.
The other piece to understanding a mentor/ mentee relationship is understanding that you will have to put in the work to get something out of it. You’ll need to stretch yourself mentally and emotionally and have the capacity to take the good feedback with the bad. “There are times I haven’t liked what my mentors have said,” entrepreneur Sue-Ellen Watts explains. “I didn’t want to listen because their ‘advice’ was hard for me to implement or meant I had to make a tough decision I didn’t want to make.”
If you’re finding that work and life are tough for you to navigate without having a visceral, emotional reaction to basic things, the mentor solution might not be the right solution for you right now. You might need to find an actual confidant or professional listener like a therapist to help you work through your challenges.
Lisa Abdilova says that a therapist is the right person to seek out if you’re:
- Feeling stressed and overwhelmed
- Having trouble sleeping, socializing, relaxing, or focusing
- Noticing changes in your appetite, hygiene, or lifestyle
- Experiencing back, neck, or shoulder pain as well as muscle tension
- Struggling with unusually low self-confidence
- Having trouble connecting with other people
- Spiraling into potential signs of depression or anxiety
Only you will know what feels right to help get you back on track, and pursue what you want to get out of your career. However, if you can get your managers’ attention in a positive way, and steer your workload toward doing more of what you enjoy, your next promotion will likely be closer than you think. If your manager still doesn’t want to engage after you lay the groundwork and follow through, finding a mentor to help give you strategies to find career growth and satisfaction might just give you the support you need to determine how to move up or move on.