Early in my career, I believed a comforting myth. If I worked hard and kept my head down, my boss would notice, mentor me, and open the right doors at the right time. I pictured career growth as a relay race where my manager would eventually pass me the baton. After a few years at the starting line, I realised I had been holding my own baton all along.
Most bosses are not unkind. They are busy. Their days are crammed with meetings, quarterly targets, budget cycles, and the occasional emergency that arrives just before close of play. Your development sits in a dangerous zone called important but not urgent. Good intentions live there. Progress rarely does. The system is not designed to prioritise your long-term growth. It is designed to deliver short-term outcomes.
Here is the unvarnished truth. Your boss is paid to deliver results, not to design your future. Their success is measured in quarters. Your growth unfolds over years. Expecting those timelines to align perfectly creates frustration and passivity. Once you accept this, you stop outsourcing your destiny. You begin to behave like the owner of your career rather than a tenant waiting on a landlord.
Ownership starts with agency. You seek mentors outside your reporting line. You join cross-functional projects that build breadth as well as depth. You learn skills that outlast your current title. You design a learning plan that is aligned with where your industry is moving rather than where your team is today. You ask better questions. What can I learn here that travels with me? Who else can challenge my thinking? Where do I need to stretch next?
This shift is not about rebellion. It is about realism. When you stop needing your boss to care, you begin to lead your own development. Ironically, that is often when managers take notice. Initiative earns respect in ways that waiting never will. Leaders value people who create clarity, solve problems, and seek feedback without needing applause. Self-directed growth is a signal of readiness.
Treat your boss like a stakeholder, not a saviour. Align your goals to the team’s outcomes. Make it easy for them to support you by presenting clear proposals. For example, instead of asking vaguely for opportunities, propose a specific project you can lead, the value it will deliver, and the skills you will build. Ask for sponsorship, not rescue. Offer updates that show progress and learning. People sponsor momentum.
Expand your circle of influence. A single line of mentorship is fragile. Build a personal advisory bench that includes a peer who challenges you without flattery, a senior leader who will advocate for you when rooms get small, and someone outside your industry who gives you perspective unclouded by internal politics. Diversified guidance beats dependency.
Design evidence of growth. Keep a simple portfolio of outcomes and learning. Summaries of cross-functional work, short write-ups of experiments you led, and concrete data on impact will serve you better than titles alone. When opportunities appear, the professional who can show portable value moves first.
If you need an image that makes the point, think of your boss as a cat. Occasionally affectionate, mostly indifferent, and impossible to predict. Waiting for a cat to fetch is not a plan. Owning your career is.
Key Takeaways
- Your manager is measured on outcomes, not on your long-term development.
- Career ownership begins when dependency ends.
- Growth accelerates through cross-functional work and portable skills.
- Sponsorship follows initiative and clarity.
- A diversified advisory bench is more powerful than a single mentor.
Try This
Create a one-page career operating plan. Section one: capabilities to build in the next twelve months. Section two, projects or problems that will build those capabilities. Section three, three people who can advise or sponsor you, with a first ask for each. Review monthly and update with evidence of progress.
Closing Thought
If this reframed how you think about development, share it with someone waiting for recognition. Careers advance when we stop waiting and start designing.
