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‘My Boss Won’t Give Me Any Direction’
Dealing with a lack of direction
- Name the issue. Your manager might already be aware of the problem.
- If your boss wants you to take more ownership, you can say that you want to take more ownership for your projects but that you want to do so with confidence knowing what she/he is envisioning.
- You may have to draw those details out of your boss with each new assignment.
- Once you get started on the work, consider giving an early view of your work to your manager, to have a chance to be provided with input early on.
- It may take a few rounds to figure out exactly what something should be.
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Bad at delegating
There is a situation where your manager will assign you a project but not give enough instruction, hoping you will just figure it out. When the project is mostly completed, your manager may finally turn attention to the project and express disappointment because you did not do it in a way she expected.
You may feel like you are continually failing at your job, but that would be wrong. It is more likely that your manager is bad at delegating.
Leaving out the guesswork
Your manager may not put in the effort up front to articulate the expectations she/he has so that you're on the same page from the start. It may leave you guessing what successful completion might look like, and then frustrate you both when you think wrong.
To be fair, at a certain level of seniority, it becomes more reasonable for a manager to expect you to know what you're doing and work out the details by yourself. But even then, a good manager knows when to invest the time to get more aligned on those things.
Dealing with a lack of direction
- Name the issue. Your manager might already be aware of the problem.
- If your boss wants you to take more ownership, you can say that you want to take more ownership for your projects but that you want to do so with confidence knowing what she/he is envisioning.
- You may have to draw those details out of your boss with each new assignment.
- Once you get started on the work, consider giving an early view of your work to your manager, to have a chance to be provided with input early on.
- It may take a few rounds to figure out exactly what something should be.
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