In many roles, it’s up to you to pursue your own growth and lead yourself.
Customer Journey Series: Carrie
Carrie is a finance executive who came to coaching during a career transition. Over the years that followed, she navigated new roles, organizational change, layoffs, difficult bosses, and periods of uncertainty.
Her journey explores self-leadership, resilience, confidence, and learning to take ownership of her own growth.
Each post in this series examines a real coaching conversation or leadership challenge from Carrie’s journey.
This is the third post in Carrie’s series.
After her first full year in her new post, Carrie had a setback that taught her how to lead herself.
This is a more important transition than many people realize. At higher levels, you need to generate ideas for growth and improvement and show you have the strategic skills and drive to move a team forward.
If your boss doesn’t need someone to tell them what to do, you probably are good enough to generate ideas for how to do your job better and bring more value to your organization. In many roles, it’s up to you to pursue your own growth.
Carrie spent a year coaching every other week, and learning how to be more collaborative, curious, and supportive. At that point, we shifted to meetings once a month, as she was still encountering new situations and growth opportunities at the new firm.
Handling a Distant Boss
Carrie had expected some team reshuffling as the beginning of the year came around. It was pretty standard in the industry that the new year was when people transitioned to move up or sometimes move laterally. Often people stayed within an organization for 20 years or more, so frequent team reshuffling was one way to give people new opportunities and keep people challenged.
This year, her first boss was promoted, and Carrie was transferred to a new team with a new boss. Actually, he had been her boss’s boss, so much of the team was still together. He was based in London and was distant not only physically but in every way.
He was very nice but, to Carrie, he felt disengaged. The signals she got from him were that he was very busy running several regions. She got little feedback from him and almost no guidance.
It was the complete opposite of her prior boss with whom she had regular, weekly 1:1s. With this boss, it was hard to get 1:1 time with him at all, even once a quarter. He just said, “You know what you need to do. Just do it. I trust you.”
So, she did what she had been doing before.
She managed her team well. She administered the systems she had put in place.
She went to meetings with people at a new level. They trusted and respected her, and she felt she was building good relationships. She listened to them and appreciated them, and she started building her network at that level.
But she didn’t feel appreciated and she didn’t feel challenged. Over time, she got into a rut.
Her team did what they had done before, but she didn’t challenge them or encourage them to stretch and grow. She appreciated them and encouraged them to keep going, but eventually, without input from her boss, she wasn’t sure where to go from there.
When she did talk to her boss, he was complimentary, told her she knew what she was doing, and that she was doing fine. The year went by uneventfully.
Doing Fine Is Not Good Enough
At the beginning of the next new year during performance reviews, Carrie was surprised to find out that her boss had rated her average in all areas: leadership, partnership, finance, and execution.
Two others who reported to him were rated a level higher, as Above Average.
“I could see why he rated me as average,” she said. “I didn’t push myself.” Carrie was honest and admitted that, even though it was a painful insight.
“But I would have pushed myself if I’d had some feedback and some encouragement. It’s hard to know where you are if there is just a leadership void above you.”
She reflected further. “I didn’t want to be seen as a complainer, so I didn’t ask for more. Now as a result, I feel I’m being sidelined again. I feel like my boss was prioritizing his needs and didn’t help me be my best.”
Sadly, she just said, “I feel broken.”
I knew she needed some encouragement so I asked her to reflect on what more she could be doing. “What do you see that could be done better in your area?”
“I actually had an idea for a project that would improve our results,” she said. “What I need to do is put together the material for it, socialize it with my network to get feedback and input, and then bring it to a meeting.”
As soon as she had a project and direction for growth, she perked up again and regained her energy.
“When are you going to put the material together and socialize it?” I asked.
“By the end of February,” she said. “I need to make the best of this situation and show them I’m better than this. I can motivate myself if that’s what it takes.”
She bounced back because she was good at her job. She had confidence in herself and knew what she could do. Now, she was ready to dig in and show them how she could lead herself.
Continue the Journey
← Previous Post | Next Post →
Keep Learning
Return to Customer Journeys Hub
