Speaker 1: Hey, this is Chris with Hacking Leadership on today's discussion
Speaker 1: and employee engagement. I want to talk about a listener
Speaker 1: question that we received that I got on LinkedIn. Actually,
Speaker 1: someone reached out to ask me what I would do
Speaker 1: in a situation where they were trying to kind of
Speaker 1: advance their career to move up to, you know, take
Speaker 1: the next steps forward, and their direct boss, their direct
Speaker 1: leader was just completely disengaged. And it wasn't from a
Speaker 1: standpoint of, you know, trying to hinder their career or
Speaker 1: trying to you know, hurt anything. It was just that
Speaker 1: person had basically checked out. That person was just kind
Speaker 1: of phoning in their role. Nice person, easy to get
Speaker 1: along with, just not not not easy to depend on
Speaker 1: for career development or personal growth or opening doors, you
Speaker 1: know that kind of thing. What do you do in
Speaker 1: that situation? And I thought it was a great question
Speaker 1: because you know, there's there's that's different than if a
Speaker 1: person is intentionally trying to subvert you or trying to
Speaker 1: you know, trying to hurt your career, and if you
Speaker 1: address that relationship from that standpoint, but it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that it's not important. It doesn't mean that it doesn't
Speaker 1: impact a lot of people. And I think that you
Speaker 1: know when you have when you have people in roles
Speaker 1: for a long time, If a person who's had kind
Speaker 1: of lost the desire to move up themselves and has
Speaker 1: been in that same role for you know, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: sometimes twenty years or more, that can be a real
Speaker 1: good indicator that that might be what is happening, is
Speaker 1: that they're not necessarily that they've lost the will or
Speaker 1: the ability or the desire to help other people move up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so much to unpack here so little time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I think that they're they're not typically like it's
Speaker 2: it's not a one for one as far as like
Speaker 2: the amount of the amount of time that somebody is
Speaker 2: in a role and the same role over time, and
Speaker 2: like their cap their ability to be engaged with like
Speaker 2: the career progression of their people. Like, it's not as
Speaker 2: simple as that, But I will tell you that it
Speaker 2: leans very heavily in that direction, is it. If if
Speaker 2: you have people that are in the same role for
Speaker 2: a really, really, really long time, It's it's rare that
Speaker 2: they just don't want to do the next thing. It's
Speaker 2: more locked into either they really really really enjoy that
Speaker 2: exact thing. It works for them, it's at the level
Speaker 2: of their capability. But if you're in that space and
Speaker 2: you're not trying to advance yourself, if you're not constantly
Speaker 2: looking to like develop yourself and and take learning and
Speaker 2: take feedback to whatever you can get to even prepare
Speaker 2: yourself for the next role, even if you don't you know,
Speaker 2: necessarily want to go down that path.
Speaker 1: If you're not.
Speaker 2: Doing that, it's really hard to then inspire and motivate
Speaker 2: others to want to do that for themselves, which is
Speaker 2: I think why it does lean heavily in that direction.
Speaker 2: Typically you have someone who's in a role, and again
Speaker 2: it's industry by industry, but let's say that they're in
Speaker 2: a typical role for you know, two to three to
Speaker 2: five years, and that's enough time to really be able
Speaker 2: to be not only really effective and efficient at the job,
Speaker 2: but have success over time and have the opportunity to
Speaker 2: train and develop some of your people. Like that time
Speaker 2: frame makes a lot of sense to me in a
Speaker 2: lot of spaces now, especially when you're leading people, like
Speaker 2: I think in the individual contributor world. If you're a
Speaker 2: if you're an engineer, if you're a doctor, if you're
Speaker 2: if you're in spaces where you can continue to level
Speaker 2: up and maybe you get into project management, but eventually
Speaker 2: you get into people leadership. Like that, to me is
Speaker 2: where the constant movement is most helpful in helping to
Speaker 2: move others along as well, because number one, it opens
Speaker 2: up a spot for somebody to kind of promote into,
Speaker 2: and number two, it shows that that leader is continuing
Speaker 2: to grow for their own for the for theirselves and
Speaker 2: in their own professional career, and that then allows them
Speaker 2: to be so much more engaged in bringing up their
Speaker 2: backfill and making sure that the next person or the
Speaker 2: next people on their team are ready for what's next.
Speaker 2: If they're stacked it, it's a lot harder to make
Speaker 2: a movement when you yourself are not moving.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with that, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: on a little side note here, if you are a
Speaker 1: leader of leaders, I'm not saying that that there's a
Speaker 1: one to one you know ratio or you know, if
Speaker 1: this then that case here, But if you are a
Speaker 1: leader of leaders and you have a particular leader who
Speaker 1: has not promoted anybody, has not gotten anybody promoted up
Speaker 1: from with underneath them, or gotten you know, people to
Speaker 1: move up from underneath them within you know, six months
Speaker 1: or a year. It would be something to dig into, right,
Speaker 1: It'd be something to look in do to figure out
Speaker 1: why why is that the case? Because you want to
Speaker 1: make sure that if if the scenario we're talking about
Speaker 1: here is what's going on, then you, as a leader
Speaker 1: of leaders might have a responsibility to step in and
Speaker 1: help somebody else when you know someone when when your
Speaker 1: direct report isn't doing it, isn't doing their job responsibilities correctly,
Speaker 1: and you can address that and and make sure that
Speaker 1: they have the support that they need, because oftentimes a
Speaker 1: disengaged leader is Sometimes it's the scenario I said, they're
Speaker 1: just kind of phoning it in because they're just burnt
Speaker 1: out and they're tired and they've been doing the same
Speaker 1: thing for twenty years. Other times there's another cause of it.
Speaker 1: And if there's another cause of it, then it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that that person is unsalvagable. It just means that
Speaker 1: you still need to help them get through whatever it
Speaker 1: is and move forward. But I want to go through
Speaker 1: a couple of things that you can do as an
Speaker 1: employee to advance your career to make sure that a
Speaker 1: disengaged boss is not hurting you as much as they
Speaker 1: as they could. But first, let's give it up toward
Speaker 1: tom more sponsors. All right, if you're trying to advance
Speaker 1: your career in spite of the fact that your boss
Speaker 1: might be disengaged, your direct leader might be disengaged, the
Speaker 1: very first thing that you want to do is be
Speaker 1: very clear on the feedback and intentions that you're asking for.
Speaker 1: And so if you want to move up, if you
Speaker 1: want to go to the next role or the next step,
Speaker 1: or get promoted or whatever happen having this door opened
Speaker 1: for you, be very very clear, both verbally with your
Speaker 1: boss and with a follow up email, that this is
Speaker 1: what you want to do, and you're asking for feedback
Speaker 1: on how to get there. And if you don't get
Speaker 1: a response, then send a followup email again and I
Speaker 1: follow up conversation again. Make sure that you're creating a
Speaker 1: paper trail that is respectful, like this isn't a why
Speaker 1: are you ghosting me? This is a Hey, I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in doing this. How do I make this happen?
Speaker 1: What advice can you give me? What feedback can you
Speaker 1: give me? What should I be doing differently? Always approach
Speaker 1: it from the standpoint of assuming positive intent from them,
Speaker 1: while also creating that digital paper trail that said that
Speaker 1: you did your due diligence in asking for feedback. So
Speaker 1: if it ever comes to a point where you have
Speaker 1: to get somebody else involved, then you have that history
Speaker 1: to say you made your best efforts, you made the
Speaker 1: attempts you didn't just you know, want and done it,
Speaker 1: and then you know, go to that person's boss. That's
Speaker 1: the first thing. The second thing is you want to
Speaker 1: seek out of mentor find somebody in a role that
Speaker 1: might be a hear of your boss or somebody else
Speaker 1: and ask them to mentor you, not in the context
Speaker 1: of hey, my boss is disengaged, just in the context of, hey,
Speaker 1: I want some differing perspectives. You know, I work with
Speaker 1: this person, this person's my boss. I'm getting feedback from them.
Speaker 1: I'd love to get some feedback from you too, because
Speaker 1: there are people of all over the all over this
Speaker 1: organization that have different perspectives, and I think it's valuable
Speaker 1: for me to get the perspective of other people too,
Speaker 1: not just my boss. So there are ways to do
Speaker 1: this and to create relationships that don't that don't open
Speaker 1: up the door to you being accused of throwing somebody
Speaker 1: under the bus, but also don't allow you to have
Speaker 1: your wagon hitch to a single horse, And whether or
Speaker 1: not that horse makes it is whether or not your
Speaker 1: career makes it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's I think two things. And the
Speaker 2: first thing I think about is like, you've got to
Speaker 2: be doing great work in the current role that you have,
Speaker 2: Like there is a kind of shure, like because the
Speaker 2: first of all was like, well, I give people advice
Speaker 2: all the times, say hey, go talk to the decision makers,
Speaker 2: Go talk to the people that are going to be
Speaker 2: a part of the process of you getting the next job,
Speaker 2: and do exactly what you're saying, which is like, go
Speaker 2: ask them questions. But if the answer is like you
Speaker 2: need to make sure that you have, you know, time
Speaker 2: to show the consistent success in your current role, that's
Speaker 2: also an answer that you have to be prepared for
Speaker 2: and ready for and you should you should get and
Speaker 2: like you should want to be able to have that
Speaker 2: because to walk into the next role being able to
Speaker 2: talk about the success stories of your current role is
Speaker 2: really really critical. But I think that the second piece
Speaker 2: of that is, like I get these specific details if
Speaker 2: you are doing well in your current role, if you're
Speaker 2: seeing success over time, and again I don't want to
Speaker 2: get specifics into how much time that is exactly, but
Speaker 2: just over time. It's not like you know, you just
Speaker 2: got this responsibility and then you've done one project or
Speaker 2: you've had one month or two months of doing good work,
Speaker 2: Like you want to see some success over time here.
Speaker 2: But if you have done that and then you're asking
Speaker 2: those questions and have that person be very specific, don't
Speaker 2: just settle for like, hey, keep doing what you're doing,
Speaker 2: You did great with that, keep that up, like you
Speaker 2: need to say and ask questions like, well, hey, if
Speaker 2: I was going to be in this role tomorrow, like
Speaker 2: what would you expect of me today? Like what exactly
Speaker 2: are you looking for? If I think about three months
Speaker 2: from now that I would want to do the next job,
Speaker 2: what would you have seen me accomplish in this one
Speaker 2: and how would we measure that and what would that be?
Speaker 2: Like get into the really really specifics because that's going
Speaker 2: to help you build the best possible plan. And if
Speaker 2: you ask multiple people, be prepared to get different answers.
Speaker 2: And that's a part of figuring out that if you
Speaker 2: have multiple people in a decision making process, they're all
Speaker 2: going to have some elements of their own perspectives or
Speaker 2: thoughts on what you should do and how you should.
Speaker 1: Get there right, and it's important for you to be
Speaker 1: able to speak to it from a standpoint of making
Speaker 1: all of them happy. And it is what it is
Speaker 1: that this is the bias they might bring. And when
Speaker 1: I say bias, I don't mean it in a negative way.
Speaker 1: I just mean a factual human way. We all bring
Speaker 1: our own biases to the table when it comes to
Speaker 1: what we put value on in promoting and hiring decisions.
Speaker 1: And if you if there are multiple people involved, then
Speaker 1: you need to be able to see it from their perspective.
Speaker 1: The other thing I want to bring up too, and
Speaker 1: I think this is equally important, is if you're This
Speaker 1: isn't just from the standpoint of of getting feedback or
Speaker 1: engagement from a boss who is disengaged when you want
Speaker 1: to move up, but advancing your career could also be
Speaker 1: in fixing the problems that are happening in your in
Speaker 1: your own you know way of doing things. And so
Speaker 1: this isn't just you know, go to your go to
Speaker 1: people once you have all your ducks in a row.
Speaker 1: This is make sure you're high performing in your role
Speaker 1: before you ask for these things. I agree with that.
Speaker 1: But if you're not high performing in your role and
Speaker 1: you want to get better at it, this applies also.
Speaker 1: So if you if you need to get this the
Speaker 1: feedback from a disengaged boss who won't tell you how
Speaker 1: to get better at your current role, and you think
Speaker 1: that you're you're inability to perform at a high level
Speaker 1: in your current role is holding you back from getting promoted.
Speaker 1: That's a very real thing too, And so the advice
Speaker 1: is still the same advice. Absolutely, ask your boss for feedback,
Speaker 1: and if they're disengaged, I'm not giving it to you,
Speaker 1: ask a mentor or somebody else for feedback. But you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to approach it from the standpoint of
Speaker 1: I want to get promoted now. You can. You can
Speaker 1: start the conversation with I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: this is on the radar for six months or a
Speaker 1: year from now, or the next time one of these
Speaker 1: roles becomes open. And I know I'm not prepared for
Speaker 1: it now, but I want to be how do I
Speaker 1: get there? And as long as that conversation is framed
Speaker 1: in that way, you're gonna get the You'll get the
Speaker 1: right response from that person, you know, just don't go
Speaker 1: to that person giving them the impression from you that
Speaker 1: you want the role now or that you think you're
Speaker 1: ready for it now. If you're not, you're not ready
Speaker 1: for it. You're not ready for it. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you shouldn't be having the conversation, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you can't have these conversations with other people.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for joining us in this discussion and employee engagement.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next Thursday for the next one. You
Speaker 1: have a great day.