Sometimes it's hard to say if it's you or your boss.
One thing's for sure: Your boss can't stand you.
1. You're full of it.
When you got hired, you committed the ultimate crime. You oversold, and now you're underdelivering. Being able to talk a good game is great, but if you're going to swear up and down that you can swim with the sharks, you better not act like a screaming, flailing drowning person when you find yourself in the deep end.
Because you can't execute, because you misrepresented yourself, because you don't have the drive, the ability, or the brains to figure how to do it once you're in it, your boss is biding his time until the day he can't wait for: getting rid of you.
2. You're not a self-starter.
Here's what you don't understand: Your boss is not here to hold your hand. Your boss is not here to micromanage you, to tell you what to do every day, to make your decisions for you. You're supposed to be able to do this job aut-on-omous-ly. But you can't. You couldn't pull the trigger on anything if your life depended on it, you sit behind your desk like you're waiting for orders, and the idea of walking into your boss's office with a creative solution to a business problem never crossed your mind.
You're this company's albatross. You're the extra weight in the trunk that works against forward motion. You don't get that being an employee means being a team player, and to be on the team, you have to get off the bench and play.
3. You're a mercenary.
You're great. You're a genius. You bring the money, the clients, the solutions. But everyone else acts like you're a wolf with rabies — because that's what you act like. Staying behind your office's closed door, refusing to interact with anyone else like they're human beings, incapable of imparting any of what you know to anyone else, you fail your peers beside and those below you, and, in doing so, you leave it up to your boss to bear the load of leadership alone.
Too bad you just don't get it. If only you'd learn it isn't all about you, your boss might give you that raise, that promotion, that responsibility you're so sure you deserve. Unfortunately, that ceiling your head keeps hitting was made by you.
193 comments