What To Do When You Outgrow Your Manager

Jun 09, 2024

If you're at one company long enough, it's possible that you have the opportunity to work with a manager for several years. In some cases, that length of time leads to you outgrowing your manager. It’s no ones fault, but it can be disheartening when you realize it.

Disclaimer: For me, I've changed managers pretty much every year of my career so far, sometimes multiple times in one year. Recently, I've had the pleasure of working with the same boss for a little over a year and a half. I’ve learned a lot from him and our relationship is still healthy. Andy if you’re reading this, thank you for your guidance and the growth opportunities so far!

In those years when I was on the management carousel, I did feel like I was running into a wall. Navigating this feeling can be tough, but there are some steps you can take to improve your situation.

First, you’ll need to express that you feel underserved when it comes to mentorship. You’ll also need to be prepared to discuss why you feel you aren’t getting appropriate mentorship that way you can solve the problem with your manager.

That in mind, let’s dive a bit deeper. For each of these sections, consider the question and whether or not you are able to answer quickly. If not, it’s good to reflect on each piece to pick apart where you’ll want to focus on improving your situation. Find an answer to each of the following:

Is Your Manager Negatively Impacting You?
Have You Told Your Manager You Feel This Way?
What Is Your Manager’s Specialty?
Can You Learn From Others In Your Company?
Can You Get Connected With Folks Outside Your Company?

I’ll say it again because it’s critical. Above all else, you must communicate the way you are feeling. Suffering in silence will keep everything status quo and your frustration will grow.

Is Your Manager Negatively Impacting You?

When I talk to folks who mention their manager is negatively impacting them, this is the first set of questions I ask them.

Is it that they aren't taking care of you?
Do they have toxic traits that are making life difficult for you?
Is your manager undercutting you and actively holding you back?
Have you told them?

If it’s the first two or three items and your manager is negatively impacting you, you might need to hold a skip-level with their boss or HR to rectify the situation. It’s a tough situation to be in, so I hope it’s a recoverable relationship. Confronting a toxic boss about their trait directly has a chance of going sideways quickly, so be sure to loop in HR if you feel it’s past the point of no return.

If your manager is toxic, you might be able to ask for a lateral move or team transfer. Let their manager know, "Hey, I can't work with this person anymore." Prepare for this to be a difficult conversation and a difficult road to travel because you're going to get a lot of questions. What isn't going well? What is irreparable? What things can't be done?

It's possible they say, "I'm sorry, we can't do anything. You need to stick it out, and we'll look for opportunities to change as they arise." Don't expect it to be an immediate switch unless your manager is already on the hot seat. There are a lot of different ways to approach this, but I think ultimately it's about conversations.

Reminder that no job is worth your mental health deteriorating, so consider if the company is still a good fit or if you’d be better off elsewhere. In many cases with toxic managers either the employee leaves or the manager is fired.

Tactical Tip: Work with HR and your manager’s manager to determine what options are available. At this point your manager should also be aware of the toxicity and be aiming to improve.

Have You Told Your Manager You Feel This Way?

When it feels like you've hit a wall and outgrown your manager from a mentorship perspective, have that conversation with them. Say, "Hey, I feel like I'm not getting X from you anymore. What can we do about that?" Truthfully, they may already realize this. It’s possible they don’t know what to do about it or were waiting for you to recognize the stagnation.

Any manager worth their salt wants to see you grow, regardless whether it is them doing the mentoring or someone else. It's possible that they've been preoccupied or haven't thought to help with that kind of mentorship recently. It’s also possible this is the first time they’ve heard the feedback clearly from you. In any of these cases, they can double down and start working with you more specifically.

Maybe adding something to each of your one-on-ones to give you a specific tip, item to think about, or maybe checking in on how a particular new mode of operation is going for projects will be beneficial. Either way, continue to evaluate whether you are getting what you need from your manager and be vocal when you are not.

Above all else, your manager should (hopefully) begin looking for ways to assist you in furthering your growth and career goals.

Tactical Tip: Tell your manager you desire further mentoring, being clear and specific about the growth area and goals for further mentorship.

What Is Your Manager’s Specialty?

Your manager is in their role for a reason, so what is it? Managers tend to have a few modes of operation:

Growth / Nurturing
Operators
Technologist
Communicator Teflon
Lemming

There’s something to be gleaned from each, other than the Lemming manager who follows the direction of their higher ups without question, providing no context of why they are doing what they’re doing.

Don't assume that your manager can't or won't do something to improve the situation. Ask them about it and see if they have any recommendations. Look at their background.

What did they do prior to this?
What is their expertise?
Where can they help you?

Hopefully you’ll find common ground and your manager can begin to mentor you in a new area.

If you feel you’ve surpassed your manager in all areas and there’s nothing else to be learned, first you might want to check that ego a bit, second, ask them what they’re learning. It may be something where you can both learn together. Some managers will be a bit intimidated by this, but the best ones will be excited to learn something new with a collaborator.

Tactical Tip: Learn more about your manager’s background and have them mentor you in an area in which you are unfamiliar.

Can You Learn From Others In Your Company?

In a previous role I was vertically stagnant. My boss recognized that there was no room for me to gain more responsibility unless someone left, so we started branching out horizontally.

Doing this helped me expand my understanding of operations, finance, and other core areas of the business that I hadn’t yet had exposure. I did several ridealongs and 1:1s with stakeholders to get a better sense of how they viewed the world and I was grateful for that exposure.

You likely have that opportunity in your business as well if you ask for it. Try finding someone within your company who has the skill set you want, a position you want, or expertise in a particular area that you would like to have expertise in. Work with them to further explore and understand mentorship-wise how to improve. They may have books you can read or side projects or open-source projects that you can take a look at. The best cross-functional mentors will pull you into the projects they are working gone to give you further insight into their world.

Even better, look within your team or discipline. If you’re a mid-level or senior engineer, there is likely a lead or staff engineer you can learn from. A manager interested in growing your skills can help foster that mentorship relationship and many times more senior engineers have some sort of goal around mentoring.

Whatever discipline you choose, try to find somebody within your company who gives you that mentorship that you crave and are not currently getting from your manager.

Tactical Tip: Look across your org chart to see what other areas of the business interest you and who might be able to tell you about their career and current projects.

Can You Get Connected With Folks Outside Your Company?

In cases where they're kind of tapped out and don't really have anyone internally to learn from, you and your manager should look for different ways to find that appropriate mentorship. Sites like Plato, for instance, have mentors available on the engineering side, ranging from high-level ICs to CTOs (shameless plug, it’s one of the sites where I’m a mentor!).

I could probably write an entire post on finding mentorship outside of your company, but will keep it to a few bullet points.

Find someone you admire on LinkedIn and consume their content
Reach out to someone in a similar or elevated role at a company in the same industry
Go to a meetup
Look for a Slack community, Discord server, or Subreddit to learn from

If your manager isn’t helping you here you’ll unfortunately need to be proactive, but there are plenty of venues to find mentorship these days. Honestly, if you can’t find anything let me know, I’d be happy to point you in the right direction.

Final Thoughts

Your manager can't be all things for you, and if you are with them long enough, they won't be all things for you, and that's perfectly okay. It doesn't mean they're any less of a manager. It just means that you yourself are growing enough that you have grown past what they can offer in certain areas. They will still be able to offer you professional and career growth opportunities.

Be loud about the mentorship you are missing and seek out new avenues for getting the growth opportunities you crave.

What other questions do you ask yourself in these situations? Let me know in the comments.

With nearly 10 years of experience in engineering leadership, I specialize in guiding teams through complex organizational challenges and growing pains. As a seasoned mentor, I am passionate about sharing insights and strategies to help engineers and leaders excel. If you're looking for mentorship or advice on engineering leadership, I’d love to connect. Feel free to reach out via LinkedIn to start a conversation.

Hartley's Handbook

Discussion about this post