What do you do if your boss doesn't understand your career goals in digital strategy?

If your boss doesn’t understand your career goals in digital strategy, start by trying to understand their perspective. Assess their priorities, challenges, and how they perceive success within the team and organization. This understanding can help you tailor your communication, making it more relevant and compelling to them. Consider also their leadership style and how they prefer to receive information. This insight will be invaluable when you present your career aspirations in a way that aligns with their expectations and the company’s objectives, facilitating a more productive dialogue.

Getting on the same page requires active listening. Understanding goes both ways. Your priorities must align with the business's priorities, and understanding the challenges from a manager's perspective is good for your career. It can't be all about you and what you want, so how will your career goals and aspirations serve the business? How can you support your boss in resolving the challenges? Become part of the solution, not just another problem. If you cannot reach an agreement, there are plenty of cost-effective online courses you can take independently to upskill if your boss will not support your goals. Ultimately, your career progression is your responsibility - if it matters, you are not at their mercy. You can make it happen.

Remember always that it's your boss's job to support your career aspirations, not to carry them. Too many employees present their career development as a problem for the manager to solve. It's your life, your career, why leave it in someone else's hands? Show initiative. You need to do more than communicate your goals. You need to present them with a plan that considers the business's priorities over the next five years. Remember always that when you handball responsibility to your boss, you create a burden that may be low on their list of priorities. When you present a plan that supports the development of the business, you make it easy for them to support your goals.

Your manager is the "Enabler" and you are the "Doer" when it comes to your career goals. Before you approach your manager have a short, mid and long term goals set out. Think about a course, a project, a team, a department that you want to learn, work with or get exposure to respectively. Have an open discussion with your manager on what you want to achieve during your term. Set up time to discuss the plan (Do not do this over coffee). Agree on maximum 2 to 3 actions that you will need help from your manager. Set up regular milestone meetings, once per month or quarter depending on the scope. If you do not have one then prepare a document where you can track progress and learnings. Gather your mangers inputs and repeat the process.

Once you have a clear path of your goals you then need to identify what help / guidance you need from your manager. Remember you and your manager work as a team at this point. Get his/her buy-in to the goals. A good manager will always add a perspective or an insight that you would not be aware of. Be open and demonstrate your adaptability. I credit more than 50% of my career success to my managers who pushed me into projects where I thought I would fail and they thought I would outshine everyone else. They were right. These so called "Unwanted" projects got me the visibility, recognition and growth faster than my peers and colleagues.

A boss is just one person, but you also have a variety of mentors, coaches and sponsors who can help you advance. Leverage both formal and informal contacts to learn more about their careers and ask for advice on yours.

Handlungsm?glichkeiten 1. Akzeptieren 2. Ver?ndern 3. Verlassen Die Optionen lassen sich relativ schnell und eindeutig bewerten. Betroffene wissen recht gut, wie sie zu mindestens 2 der drei Optionen stehen. Die Ver?nderungen liegen oft bei den Betroffenen selbst oder aber man ver?ndert die Sichtweise des Gegenüber. Schnell ist klar was geht und was nicht. Sofern 1. und 2, nicht in Betracht kommen bleibt "Verlassen" übrig. Hierzu ist keine eigenst?ndige Bewertung mehr n?tig, da 1. und 2. schon abgew?hlt sind. Option die vermeintlich zwischen den 3 bestehenden Optionen liegen sind i.d.R. Ausflüchte, um sich nicht eindeutig positionieren zu müssen bzw. nicht entsprechend der dritten verbliebenen Option aktiv werden "zu müssen".