What does it take for a flower to fully bloom? It needs an ideal environment, extra special
attention, and the proper nutrients – without these things it will wilt and eventually die. The same is true for you and your career! What does it take for you to fully blossom in your job – first you need the right environment (including your workplace and the people in it), you need to pay extra special attention to your personal and professional development (self-improvement), you need to be healthy and have a good balance between work and life. This month at LTAW we will talk about how you can fully bloom in your career.

If you’re reading this, you probably already know you don’t have the world’s greatest boss. But what if, even more than being a pain in your rear end, your supervisor is keeping you from your professional goals (or at least a decent raise this year)?

What feels like a simple personality clash can have serious consequences when it occurs between a supervisor and employee.

Here are three bad boss behaviors that can keep you from your career goals:

• Dueling goals: While you may be looking to move up the corporate ladder, your supervisor might be trying to keep the spotlight on himself.

  Divergent goals can lead your supervisor to keep you off high-profile projects or away from work that shows your true value in an effort to keep you from outshining him. He may even go as far as taking credit for your ideas or work.

• Inconsistent and unclear expectations: Does your boss ask for one thing, but seem to expect another? Is the scope of your job unclear? Do deadlines change for no reason?

  When you don’t really know what you’re supposed to be doing, it’s pretty tough to do it well. And if you’re not doing your job, you’re probably not doing as well on evaluations. That means you may not be considered for promotions and it can undermine your ability to be hired at another company.

• Feedback failure: Does your boss never tell you how you’re doing? Alternately, do you only receive criticism, without ever hearing any positive feedback?

  Without an assessment, detailing both what’s good and what needs improvement, you really are working blind. You can’t improve when you don’t know you’re falling short, and you can’t capitalize on your strengths if you’re not aware what they are.

Blossom!