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Greetings,

I have served my current employer in a management role for the past three years. In those three years, our company has grown and experienced associated growing pains (organization restructures, etc.). Growing pains have included changes in staff/positions.

Our latest change has impacted my position. In the time I've been with the company, I humbly submit that I've expended long hours building a solid team. As of this writing, I have 20 direct reports across two departments.

As of this coming Monday, I will have no department/direct reports and have been assigned to a "newly created" position that's yet to be defined. My passion for my job was truely our staff. I felt that if I made the investments in the staff (weekly one-on-ones, internal promotions, flexible scheduling, professional development, etc.), our organizational goals would be readily achieved -- and they were. And the coaching, mentoring, etc., is what brought me back to my work every day.

My teams have been realigned under another manager. I was told the alignment had nothing to do with my performance. (Seems difficult to accept, however.) I feel as though the passion for my work is gone, and I've been isolated to a meaningless, non-value added position.

I sincerely appreciate the employment; it was a career before...now it seems as though it's simply a job with little opportunity.

Should I stay or should I go? It appears I've been blessed with a job for a time, or perhaps I've been given time to begin looking for other career opportunities.

Be assured...no pity party, blame game, or playing the victim. Simply trying to discern direction.

Thanks, in advance, for your feedback.

juliahhavener's picture
Licensee Badge

A newly created position...yet to be defined...so you're looking at having built and developed a solid team and now...not knowing.

That can be hard to deal with, but, right now at least, it sounds like your future could be anything right where you're at. You might make some of those recruiter contacts just to freshen up. I'd personally want to wait and see what's around the corner before committing to a major change. You don't know yet if this is a bad thing or just the beginning of something new and wonderful.

pneuhardt's picture

In chaos lies opportunity. This could be a great opportunity for you in the company.

Of course, in the absence of a defined purpose lies boredom and dissatisfaction.

I have seen this happen to others. One former manager of mine turned it in to an opportunity to have far greater impact on the company than she ever had before by becoming an "internal consultant at large." She learned more and offered more than ever before. She eventually parlayed that increased knowledge and influence in to a VP position she might never have reached otherwise. (She is now COO of a leading competitor.)

Another former associate let that feeling of having something taken away from him fester to the point he never gave the new position a chance, and soon left the company. I can't say if there really was any future there for him, but I know that any future for him died when he gave up trying to find it.

My message would be to take a little time and see what opportunities and challenges there are for you. See what you can make of this new position. To be blunt, that may be what your managment it doing: presenting you with a chance to make unguided and original contributions to the company, then seeing how you handle that chance. If you are successful at that, there is no telling where you can end up and how many new people you will get to interact with in new and even more interesting ways than you have in the past.

Mark's picture
Admin Role Badge

Sorry for my delay.

What's above is well said.

My answer is: I don't know.

I recommend two sets of actions, 1 internal and 1 external.

Internally, talk to as many people as you can about (a) what they think this means and (b) what they think you can do with this situation, and (c) do they have a job for you (if it's an area you're interested in, with staff.

I'd couch it all as trying to "define the role".

Externally. get your resume ready, and talk to recruiters and other managers in the filed whom you know, or in other fields that are local, if that's an important point.

After 2-3-4 weeks of each - THIS IS YOUR JOB NOW, DON'T GET LAZY - you'll have a better sense of things.

Mark

tlhausmann's picture
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[quote="LifeLongLearner"]Greetings,

I have served my current employer in a management role for the past three years. [...]

Thanks, in advance, for your feedback.[/quote]

How did it turn out?