When the boss becomes detached

Dear Bob …

Let me preface this submission with that statement that my boss has been very fair, very accessible, and a pleasure to work for – until recently.  At about that time, our group began a very large and highly visible project.

Everything seemed to be moving along as well as can be expected.  At some point, however, this project became not only key and high profile within our division, but it popped up on the radar of Corporate and soon was dubbed to be “the benchmark for the enterprise.”  My boss stated to my peers and I that when phase 1 kicks off and is successful, he’s looking at a promotion – so are we – and he’s going to do his best to take us with him when he moves on to corporate to oversee the enterprise deployment. Since then we’ve all been quite busy, and so has he – meetings with corporate, meetings with high level executives, giving briefings on our project to the executive committee.  But then things changed.

Shortly after his announcement to us, his demeanor changed.  He dismissed any issue with any other project that was in progress, or any “business as usual” day to day issues.  When we can squeeze time into his now busy schedule to go over current projects and issues, his new tag-line is “… just make it happen.” That doesn’t always work as we all know. He seemingly doesn’t care about any other projects, to the  degree that none of us has had a significant one on one meeting with him in months. He has no idea what our project loads look like, because we’re pretty sure he doesn’t care. He wants this one project done, on time, and that’s it.

Then over the past month it got worse. Suddenly, instead of yelling at us to “get our arms around things and get it done,” he has become distant and disengaged. He had a trip overseas (business) for a week and never checked in once.  That’s right, not once. He’s been back for four days, but hasn’t been in the office yet (why, we don’t know) – and still hasn’t replied to one email, or checked in with any of us to see what’s been going on. We all fear that he’s in over his head (he’s not as technical as he’ll have his peers and the executives believe – he relies on us to help him out with presentations at times) and that he’s totally overwhelmed. That, or on the flip side, he’s got a promotion lined up (or another job) and he doesn’t care anymore. Needless to say, morale is low. We’re all concerned about our future here, and we’re getting no guidance from our boss. We’re operating as best we can – coming together as a team regularly to keep things in line to the best of our ability – but we’re all working a lot of hours trying to keep things running.  We’re out of bandwidth.

Now, we’re of the mindset that we need to polish up our CV’s to make sure we’re ready to move if need be. Any thoughts?

– Not Getting That Warm Fuzzy Feeling

Dear Cool-and-prickly-feeling …

Here’s the best advice I have, and it isn’t all that great.

You’re in a no-win situation with your current employer. The good news about that bad news is that you have a decent chance of waiting it out. Either your current boss is about to get his promotion, and things will settle into a new pattern of some sort or other, or he won’t and is preparing his departure, at which point he’ll be gone, you’ll have a new boss, and things will then settle into a new pattern of some sort or other. The situation you describe doesn’t sound stable – something is going to give, and my guess is that it will give sooner rather than later.

So internally, keep your head down and your nose clean. The closer to being invisible you can achieve, the better.

And yes, it will do you no harm to polish your resume and start making inquiries. There’s no guarantee you’ll like the “new pattern” very much, and this way you’re taking control of your own destiny.

– Bob