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Young and Stymied by the Boss
The Question:
After finishing my professional training a year ago, I started work for a large municipal agency. Fortunately I have a pretty good working relationship with my immediate supervisor. My challenge is that he often chooses to do things himself rather than show his staff how to do them. I think he gets so busy that when something comes up he just doesn't feel he has the time to explain it to me. I'm concerned my professional development is suffering, but I don't know how to talk to him about it. -- Young and Stymied
Dear Young and Stymied,
Regular readers of Leadership House Call might think this sounds like a broken record, but before you do anything, you need to test your assumptions. Check out your interpretation of what is happening. We find in our consulting work at Cambridge Leadership Associates that the misdiagnosis of a situation, or treating an interpretation as fact, is often at the root of failed interventions. You can get into trouble if you operate on interpretations of reality that are not shared.
It does not seem obvious to us, for example, that you have "a good working relationship" with your immediate supervisor. If everything was OK between the two of you, then why is he not delegating and why are you not able to just talk to him about it?
So, first, talk to a few of your co-workers one-on-one. Do they have the same experience with your boss? You talk as if he treats all staff in the same way, but this may not be true. It's possible, for example, that he treats all new employees this way until he understands their competencies better. Or maybe he just treats you this way. Or maybe he does treat everyone this way. The point is: You need to find out, and the place to start is with your co-workers.
Let's assume for the moment, however, that you are on target. This is the most benign interpretation: It assumes your boss's behavior has nothing to do with you personally.
If you are, in fact, open to learning, then you're in a good position to approach him directly. Share your observations about how he's often too busy to train you and see you can, together, identify a couple of small areas in which he can quickly train you. This kind of low-risk experiment may let him see that investing the time to train you may ultimately help him be more effective as well, and you'll get the mentoring and growth you're craving.
[Send your questions to leadership@washingtonpost.com or leave them in the comments section below.]
By
Cambridge Leadership Associates
|
September 3, 2009; 3:05 PM ET |
Category:
Career Management
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Posted by: g35drvr | September 8, 2009 11:01 PM
A little less talk and a little more action. One thing is true, it's been an action packed summer...Next comes the fall and more work ahead. I'll shut it up and get back to work.
Posted by: Dermitt | September 4, 2009 1:46 PM
You morons need to shut the hell up. This is a newspaper that hired the publisher's niece as the managing editor, whose only qualification was that she was the publishers neice, who then turned around and tried to use the newspaper to sell access to high ranking administration officials. You people are such tools.
Posted by: August30 | September 4, 2009 10:20 AM
I came into a similar position 3 years ago, and it was a newly created position with a vague position description. With the skill set that I brought to the position, I was able to craft how the position eventually ended up functioning. This is an excellent time to look for targets of opportunity by recognizing things that need to get done, and doing them.