Boss go bye-bye

As I’ve written about before, Everybody leaves. That includes managers. But what do you do when your manager is laid off, fired, changes jobs, or retires? “Celebrate!” Yeah, sure, but then what?

Here are a few common responses to your manager leaving:

• Panic: Worry that you won’t have work to do, that your promotion is on hold, and that your job is going away. Regardless of what happens, such thoughts aren’t helpful and could be self-fulfilling.
• Gossip: Theorize with coworkers about why your manager left and what it could mean for your team. Again, these thoughts aren’t helpful. They also violate your manager’s privacy and are almost certainly incorrect.
• Ignore: Go on with your job as if nothing happened. It’s a winning strategy for a month or two, but eventually you’ll need to acknowledge and adapt to the new reality.
• Loiter: Stop working on anything since it doesn’t seem to matter. Eventually, someone will notice you’re worthless and treat you accordingly.
• Scheme: Bad-mouth your rivals and kiss up to your upper management, conniving to replace your boss. Even if you’re successful, you’ll jeopardize your future career because everyone will know you’re a schmuck.

All the common responses are problematic. Unfortunately, it could be weeks or months before your manager is replaced or you get reorg’d into a different team. What constructive things can you do until you get a new boss? Let’s start by reading the rest of this column and putting it into action.

We’ll make do

Step one when your boss leaves is to wish that person well. You never know when fate will bring you together again.

Step two is to engage your temporary boss. Often that’s your skip manager, but sometimes it’s a coworker or volunteer from another team. Even if this person only manages you for a few weeks, it’s worthwhile to get to know each other.

As I describe in Meet the new boss, when you first meet with your temporary manager, discuss your family and interests, your formal and informal accommodations, and your expectations regarding feedback, vacation, and work-life balance. Encourage your temporary manager to describe their preferences, philosophy, and expectations. Sometimes temporary bosses become permanent. They always influence what your replacement boss thinks of you.

Taking care of business

Now that you know what your temporary boss expects from you and vice versa, it’s time to deliver on those expectations. Typically, that means completing your assignments on time at the specified quality and getting along well with your teammates, partners, and customers. This should be obvious, but instead, many employees spend their time panicking, gossiping, loitering, or scheming. That’s a huge mistake.

Remember, you also shouldn’t ignore your change in management and just execute the prior plan. Your temporary manager’s priorities or expectations may differ from those of your old boss. You want to take those differences into account when executing your assignments and engaging your coworkers.

Opportunity knocks!

Although scheming to get your old manager’s job is a bad idea, your manager’s departure does open up a bunch of opportunities. Without scheming, you still could become your manager’s replacement or gain a subset of your old manager’s responsibilities.

How do you take on your old manager’s responsibilities without scheming? You ask for them. If you want to replace your manager, tell your skip you are interested. If you want to do just a few things your manager once did, ask your skip and/or temporary manager for those responsibilities. Don’t dawdle—ask within a week of learning your manager is leaving.

Why would your skip and/or temporary manager consider you seriously for these added responsibilities? Three good reasons: they know you, they are lazy/busy, and they don’t want more people to leave. Replacing your manager is hard, time-consuming, and risky. You are a known quantity, so you’re less risky. You want the job, so you’re an easy and fast replacement. They don’t want more people to leave, so making you happy by giving you what you want will retain you and help fill the void.

Even if you only want some of the responsibilities of your old manager, that’s still a growth opportunity for you and a reduction in work and risk for both your skip and temporary manager. It’s a win for everyone. Remember to ask soon after your old manager leaves so that you’re considered before someone else claims the role.

Every little thing gonna be all right

Managers are employees. They come and go. While losing your manager can be a big change, big changes offer big opportunities. Instead of panicking, gossiping, loitering, scheming, or ignoring what’s happening, which wastes the opportunity and can hurt your reputation, you should take full advantage of the time between managers by following a few simple steps.

First, wish your old boss well since you might work with them again. Second, discuss your interests, accommodations, and expectations with your temporary manager, and encourage them to describe their preferences, philosophy, and expectations. Third, apply the knowledge you’ve gained as you continue to complete your assignments and engage your teammates, partners, and customers. And finally, if you’d like some or all of your former manager’s responsibilities, tell that to your skip and/or temporary manager. They’d love to remove some or all of the work and risk associated with replacing your boss by giving those responsibilities to you.

Eventually, your old manager will be replaced. Perhaps the new boss will be great (or even you). Perhaps they’ll be a problem, and you’ll want to follow your old manager out the door. Either way, you’ll be better prepared and in a stronger position by taking full advantage of the transition.