It’s a crucial – I repeat – CRUCIAL moment in your career when your boss leaves.
Side Note: This same can be said for your boss’ boss as well, who just like your boss, should be an important person in your sphere of influence. But for the purposes of this discussion let’s just focus on your boss.
And let’s break this down by reminding you of three important facts:
- Your boss is in charge of evaluating, labelling and recording your work. In other words, your boss equals your record. They are also, if you haven’t yet learned how to construct good references without using your boss, your most important reference when applying to new jobs. Again, your boss equals your record.
- Your boss determines what skills you develop by picking your assignments to a greater or lesser extent. With a good boss, you can learn a lot on the job and fill in for them from time to time. With a bad one, you’ll get stuck doing low-value tasks such as taking notes on meetings for ten years without ever getting the opportunity to run a meeting yourself.
- The three ways of getting promoted are: You are raised up by a benefactor (80% the time), you claw your way to the top (18% of the time), or you get carried to the top (2% of the time). While your boss is very rarely this benefactor, good bosses allow you to reach benefactors, whereas bad bosses isolate you from ever reaching a potential benefactor. Your boss becomes the gatekeeper of your network within your firm.
Of these three facts – no contest – the third one is the most important. I’ve had students as well as friends, who had bad bosses send them to HR for internal company networking (i.e. what we call looking for benefactors). In one case, the boss actually claimed that “showing interest in another job made his department look bad” and that the employee who simply had a few conversations with another department’s director about potential jobs “had to be put on a performance improvement plan for insubordination”. And what’s worse is: HR agreed!
I’ve also seen the opposite happen many times, including to myself: Boss connects the professional to higher ups on the org chart, puts in a good word, and stays out of the way when a benefactor decides to hire you for a much better job.
Given these facts, it should be crystal clear that your boss is a MAJOR component of your job, but more importantly, your career trajectory. Meaning, anytime your boss leaves or changes, not only your job changes, but also, your career trajectory changes. All your assumptions and established rules for doing business as usual changes, and you roll the dice to see what comes up.
In other words, for all our purposes, you should treat your boss leaving as equivalent to changing jobs.
Let’s think through some options to put this in perspective…
Option 1: In the ideal world, your boss would be promoting you to their position while leaving. If this is going to happen, it takes a while. This will take mutual involvement for perhaps months ahead of their departure. If this is not already happening, do not assume that it will magically happen on your boss’ last day. If your boss has insinuated anything in this direction, you need to get involved, talk with them and see what you need to do. Perhaps they are waiting for you to show initiative. Perhaps they are luke warm about it and want to see how things play out. Or perhaps they have to go through interviews regardless of their desire for you to replace them. Whatever the case: GET INVOLVED! You need to make this happen. It won’t happen on it’s own.
Option 2: In the less than ideal world, but a tolerable world, you get involved in interviewing your next boss, even though you are not a contender for the position. If you’re lucky, this involvement isn’t just for show, and the executive team does pay attention to your feedback. So… You get to have a say in picking your next boss. This is good. The downside is, if this is happening, it’s also an indication that the higher ups do NOT see you as a potential replacement for your boss – if they did, they would be talking to you already. Them not seeing you as a contender is a very bad sign, because it shuts down any potential for future promotions in any reasonable length of time. You are somewhat permanently labelled as someone who fits under your current boss. Not good. It’s time to look for a better job, but at the least, you’ll have a boss you got to somewhat pick while you do so.
Option 3: In the bad but not terrible world, a new boss comes in but you have no say on who. Luckily, they are a decent person and you build a great relationship with them by supporting them in their new role. This turns the new boss into an ally, and that’s something we can work with. Your boss will love you and depend on you. In the long run, they will help you. But… This new relationship also disrupts your promotion opportunities: As far as your new boss is concerned, you started the day they started, and your experience up until their start is instantly discarded. Hey.. Wait a minute… You might think that this sounds a lot like Option 2. But no… This is a decidedly worse situation than Option 2 because, in Option 2, the higher ups took you seriously and considered your opinion. Here, as far as they are concerned, you don’t exist. Your opinion doesn’t matter. You are completely replaceable. But… You have a boss that likes you!
Option 4: In banal world of ordinary experiences, your new boss is an ordinary person, and treats you in effectively the same manner as your previous boss. Everything in Option 3 applies. But your new relationship with your new boss is an ordinary and insignificant relationship. Your job doesn’t change much. Your opportunities still disappear. New opportunities don’t appear. You end up losing all the good will and reputation you built with your previous boss. Higher-ups see you as replaceable, if they see you at all. Your boss could be any other ordinary boss. In other words, your boss doesn’t matter, you don’t matter, you just get to keep your job.
Option 5: In the terrible world, your new boss is an ordinary jackass, and looks at all inherited employees as suspect. Everything in Option 4 applies. Moreover, he tries to “change the way things are done around here” and “make you do things his way”. These are toxic individuals and should trigger a job search immediately. But that’s not all… Your environment is also toxic since the higher-ups don’t think much if anything of you, and could care less if you disappeared. You get to deal with a bad boss while trying to keep your job. That also messes up your mindset and hurts your networking and job seeking activities. It’s bad all around.
Option 6: In the worse than terrible world, your new boss is not just an ordinary jackass but is a horrible jackass. Everything in Option 5 applies, and he still looks at all inherited employees as liabilities, but rather than giving himself away, he covers his intentions with a mirage of humility and friendliness. And you don’t realise that you are effectively working for an enemy, until it’s too late and he’s demoting or replacing you. Unless you are an astute judge of character and you gather intelligence on your new boss, you’ll be screwed. Sure, you’re not as depressed as you would be in Option 5, but that’s not because the situation is better. You are simply blissfully ignorant, until, you are actually – officially – ruined!
Considering what I know about the corpo world, I’d give these options the following probabilities:
- Option 1: 1% of the time.
- Option 2: 10% of the time.
- Option 3: 5% of the time.
- Option 4: 40% of the time.
- Option 5: 24% of the time.
- Option 6: 20% of the time.
Perhaps you can tell… I’m not bullish on your future when your boss changes! I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is… 😔
As with all things corporate, the likelihood that the outcome will be negative is considerably higher than the likelihood that it will be positive.
And this is to be expected… After all…
When we as empowered professionals effect change in our environment, good things happen and things go our way. When others change our environment, bad things happen and things go their way, and their way is usually not aligned with our way. They are interested in themselves, not us.
In summary: if your boss is leaving, accept the fact that your job as you knew it is ending. It’s a great time to work on getting promoted. Even if you can’t get promoted, it’s a great time to uncover what higher-ups really think of you.
Remember: by the time your boss is leaving, your time window for shaping opinions and crafting a reputation has passed. The higher ups won’t change their opinion of you in any reasonable time-frame. You may be able to cash in on what you’ve already saved, and if not, at least reveal what’s already there by inquiring, and simply realise that you should seek greener pastures.
If none of these concern you, and you’re not interested in ascending in your career – and you “just care about keeping your job” and maybe even want to “make sure your job doesn’t turn to hell“: Get involved in the hiring process as much as you can, and steer the hiring toward finding someone that will benefit you. Even if you cannot take your boss’ job, you can at least make sure that none of the horrible jackasses who you would have never worked for, end up with power over your career.
Good luck!