When clients come to me for something that is happening at their job, it is often too late for them to launch a well-orchestrated recovery campaign. They come asking for ways to get their career momentum back, or sometimes for ways even to hold on to their job! When they come with that much urgency in their tone, it is often too late!
Why?
When I explore with them the recent history of their setbacks at work, it is often that they can recall a series of episodes that progressively got them out of favor, despite their being well-engaged in their jobs previously, and where they felt that they had much more control over what was happening to them. This is what I call leading indicators of a downward spiral, and the pattern of signals is often unmistakable. So, why do we wait so long before realizing that we need to do something to get our career on track and change our wayward treatment at work, well before the onset of the “trailing” indicators?
I think that one reason for missing the early cues from the leading indicators, which are often unmistakable, is when we go into denial over our plight. We are also too close to what is happening around us, so despite the unmistakable signals we lack the ability to discern the change and to proactively do something about it. When your situation crosses over to the “trailing indicators” zone, it is best to get out, as it is often too late to do anything about it.
This blog is a summary of the leading and trailing indicators of a downward spiral that can tank your career:
Leading Indicators (Still time to do damage control and proactively work on recovery)
- Your regularly scheduled meetings with your boss get inexplicably canceled or indefinitely postponed. This is often coupled by your boss being suddenly too busy or on a series of business trips.
- Your boss is taking longer to respond to your email requests for a decision, often with a response: Let us discuss this when we next meet. These meetings are now not happening, so you cannot get your boss to give you any meaningful guidance.
- Your workload slowly begins to lighten. Soon, you start seeing free time on your hands, and yet your boss keeps reminding you of “slowing down,” and keeping “a good work-life balance.”
- Your boss does not make an eye contact with you as you pass her in the hallways. She sees you, and quickly pretends that she is answering her cell phone, ignoring you, and showing you her index finger, rather than the usual smile and a wave!
- You are suddenly scheduled for a long trip overseas to work with an errant vendor or a partner, you did not even know existed within the realm of your regular work.
Trailing Indicators (Too late for a meaningful recovery action)
- When you are in a meeting with others your boss acts like she does not see you. She also ignores any comments you make in the meeting, pretending she did not hear you.
- Meetings that involve your project or activity, and which involve other department or functions, suddenly start taking place without your being even aware of them. When you ask your boss, as you cross her in the hallways about this, her answer will invariably be: Oh, Joe suddenly decided to call this meeting to status the project, and I did not want to burden you with this, as I know how busy you are! You later find out that your teammates had received the email notice a few days before that meeting from your boss.
- Your boss starts making decisions that you, typically, made until now: moving team members and assigning them to different projects; changing priorities on tasks that are already scheduled, without notifying you; changing project scope, with your learning about it from those, who either report to you, or from those who are on your project.
- In your next performance review, you are either passed over, with an excuse that somehow there was no time for doing a proper review in this cycle, or that you get a low rating with no explanation. You later find out that all your colleagues got their reviews on time, and that they met with the manager.
- Your manager meets with your direct reports to give them the news of their promotion and salary increases. You hear about it when they come to thank you for what they got.
When any or all of these treatments for you are manifest at work, it means that you are on your way out. In the above list, first set of items #1-5 are leading indicators (still some opportunity for a solid recovery plan), and the second, are the trailing indicators (too late for a recovery plan; you must leave!).
Actually, it would be much easier for all concerned if your boss told you that you are not performing well, and that you should look for another job and leave the company. But, in most situations that dialog requires the boss to provide leadership and to hold you accountable, which takes work on their part. So, the easy way out for them is to accord the treatment similar to the one listed in the items above, and hope that you would get the message—and resign.
So, what is your course of action when you start seeing these leading indicators for your being booted out of your job? The most forthright one is to not going into denial over it, and any change in how you are treated at work must be dealt with forthrightly, by seeking a redress meeting with your boss. Waiting to see if things improve on their own can be career suicide!
Good luck!