When Your Boss Won’t Advocate for You: How to Take Control of Your Career

Patricia Ortega

Hey there, welcome back. If you’re listening, whether you’re on the Uncommon Career or the Daring to Succeed podcast, today, Julianna and I are coming together to talk about the boss who doesn’t advocate for you.

And so if you’re in this situation, you already know when your leader isn’t championing your growth. But just to get started, I’m going to give a couple of the signs so that if you’re not in the loop on this, you will absolutely be able to self-assess.

And then Julianna and I are going to talk about some ways to build your visibility and how to shift into a method of self-advocacy.

So really, really quickly, some ways, some red flags to know when your leader isn’t championing your growth is when you sense that there’s just not any advocacy.

Let’s say there’s a big project coming up that your leader knows that you really want to grow in this area, but they don’t actually put your name forward for it.

Or maybe your leader tells you what needs to get done, but then they don’t coach you or give you any feedback.

That tells you they don’t have the information they need to also advocate for you when you’re not in the room.

If they’re withholding opportunities or if there seems to be relatively low investment in your career path, maybe the conversation’s not even being had about where you want to go from here or how you can grow as a professional.

If you feel a bit of gatekeeping, maybe not sharing information with you when other leaders are sharing opportunities with their team members, a haven’t yourself, that you’ve

Those are some ways that can tell you your boss might not be advocating for you. But now, Julianna, I know you and I have talked about some ways to build your own visibility and build your own support network.

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Where would you kick us off in that? Yeah, I think even before we get into the visibility part, as you were talking about like the really super clear signs that you’re not being getting the advocacy that you need from your leader.

I was also thinking of a client that I’m working with right now who it’s come up over and over again with her that she’s not getting the advocacy that she expects from her leadership.

But when we actually break down the examples, her leadership is advocating for her and there was a bit of a disconnect between her expectations and what they were doing.

So they were actually going out, speaking on their behalf, trying to get her opportunities, but it was a very specific thing she was looking for from that advocacy that was missing.

And that’s kind of what we were We’re targeting in on. So kind of before we get into the meat of things, I just wanted to put that little thought in your head as well, is to also kind of check your own expectations of what that advocacy looks like, so that you can be really targeted with what needs to be fixed.

Because it could be that they’re advocating for you and what you’re expecting maybe is reasonable, but maybe just that one extra step that they’re not willing to do.

Patricia Ortega

You know what? I’m so glad you brought that up because sometimes, like you said, expectations, changes in expectations. Before you can have an expectation of how someone else is going to help you, you have to be clear on what it is you want help with.

So where do you want your career to go? Have you communicated that? Have you let them know so that they can advocate in those terms and that way there isn’t that mismatch and expectation.

So that clarity is a different conversation where coaching can help, where you can talk to mentors, you can talk.

You can sit down and journal and self-reflect. It is a separate conversation, though, but it sounds like step one, to be really clear on what it is that you want your leader to advocate for you on.

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Yeah, I think that’s definitely a really good first step. And like you said, having that conversation to make sure they understand what your goals are and even having that really hard conversation of saying, here’s kind of what I was expecting or hoping or however you want to phrase it so it feels comfortable for you of, this is what I’d like to see from you as my leader for support.

And the best leaders will follow through with what they agree with and what they agree to do for you.

And I think to Patricia’s earlier point, it’s the tricky part is when they agree to something and then don’t actually do it.

Which I think is a little bit different than, you know, maybe you go to your leader and say, I want all these things.

Like, yes to these three, but no on this one. That’s a very different perception of, like, of how they can support you because they’re obviously willing to support you and it could just be a very personal thing or maybe an HR policy that they’re not allowed to kind of overstep to a certain degree.

Patricia Ortega

Oh, my gosh. That’s such a great conversation to have in terms of, you know, understanding your communication, not just what you’re communicating to them, but also what they’re communicating to you and holding them accountable to the things that they say.

And, you know, this actually is coming to my mind because I just talked about it with a client literally like 20 minutes ago before you and I started our conversation.

But we actually have episode 93, which is a career advancement plan where we actually talk through, you know, here’s how you can help your boss hold themselves accountable.

You know, there’s so many different ways that you can, when you’re. Having that conversation, make sure that you’re not asking a question where the answer is yes, I agree, or no, I don’t, but instead you’re asking an open-ended question where they have to, if you’re asking, you know, would you approve for me to do X project, instead ask, how do you think I can help with X project?

Now they have to, in their mind, make the decision and then commit to it verbally that yes, you are a good fit and here is how you can help.

Then you can take their words back to them in the future. And same thing with feedback. Not going to go into all of that, but I’m sure, Julianna, you might have a potential episode as well where you’ve talked about some of these things.

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Maybe we can link those in the description for people to go ahead and refer to them. Yeah, absolutely. I can think of a couple and we’ll for sure have those links in the show notes for everyone to look at.

Patricia Ortega

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, one of the other things that comes to my mind is, and we can touch more on this, you know, either now or later, there’s the concept of the boss.

there’s It doesn’t advocate for you. And I feel like there’s two camps, two directions that you can go in.

And sometimes both are helpful to target. One of them is helping, like managing up, helping your boss advocate for you.

And it starts with that clarity, but then also it starts with your boss can’t advocate if he doesn’t have the information necessary to advocate.

Meaning you want to make your wins proactively visible. You have to, you know, it’s a skill to kind of toot your own horn.

With a bit of humble confidence where you’re, you know, some people are like, I don’t want to brag. I don’t want to this.

I don’t want to that. But guess what? There’s no other way that people are going to know the great work that you did.

And if it’s truth, it’s not bragging. If you think about the motive behind what you’re saying, it’s not bragging.

It’s sharing the facts that need to be shared to help your leader make good decisions on who to put forward for what projects.

And so that’s one camp is, you know, what can you do to manage up and to, in a sense, it’s kind of.

It’s You know, educate your leader on how you are making progress with the organization. The other camp is looking for other ways that you can make your work visible.

And so it’s like, let’s work to help my boss, you know, advocate for me. And at the same time, let’s advocate for ourselves, right?

Let’s find other opportunities to get cross-functional exposure, to find mentors in different areas, to, you be able to leverage social platforms like LinkedIn, for example.

So what are your thoughts as far as, you know, building a plan for yourself when this is the case?

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Yeah, I wanted to start with something that you touched on earlier with the managing up part. Because sometimes what I see with my clients is that they will have that conversation, yay.

But the feedback that they get from their boss is what is the… It’s where that sticky point is, right?

So they may say, oh, I want, these are my goals, this is what I want to do. Their boss comes back and says, okay, for me to be able to advocate for you or for me to be able to help you with this promotion or whatever it is, these are the things I need to see from you.

And sometimes the stalling point is just the agreement on that list in the first place. And this gets really tricky because on the one hand, you’ve got a boss who said, okay, I’m holding you accountable for me to be able to do what I think I need to do as your boss.

I need to see A, B, C. If you’re disagreeing with A, B, and C, I think that’s a really good checkpoint for you to kind of reflect, have a conversation with a coach or a mentor to kind of dig a little bit deeper to see why are you resisting that, right?

It, it, like, if you’re. Your boss has actually given you this really clear checklist of just do these things and I, yes, I’ll hold up my end of the bargain.

Do you really want the end result if you’re not willing to do those things? Or what is it about those things that you’re resisting to do in order to get to that end result?

Patricia Ortega

Oh gosh, that’s such a great point to talk about resistance. It’s the piece behind the communication that we often don’t see.

When you’re in the room, you say things, your boss says things, but both of you leave the room with a feeling, an emotion, like an underlying, right?

And if there’s resistance on either end, that’s going to bring friction, right? And that’s going to make the advocacy harder.

And so one side is, you know, I don’t want to take on X, Y, and Z projects. Get clear on why, you know, what is happening there?

Or is it a colleague who just, you know, you guys’ personalities doesn’t tell well? for listening. And one side is Thank you.

That, you know, you don’t have the resources to carry out and those are unreasonable, right? And that’s a whole other conversation, right?

Beyond advocacy, it’s a conversation of, you know, you’ve put me on a failing project and that has a whole other set of, you know, strategies that you can take on, right?

But the piece to hone in on here is the hesitancy, right? There’s going to be potentially hesitancy either on your end to, you know, meet some of the things that are necessary in order for your boss to want to advocate for you.

And at the same time, there could be hesitancy on the other side, right? If you sense hesitancy from your boss, this is the part where you’re like, okay, let me hone in on these interpersonal skills of mine.

Let me read between the lines. Let me find who does this boss advocate for and what is happening that is different.

Because what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to fully understand how they perceive. And what that hesitation is because oftentimes there are pieces that you could ask directly but there’s going to be also perceptions and assumptions that are unspoken and sometimes neither you nor your boss will actually know that there is a mismatch in assumption or an expectation and so this is where it is on us as the candidates as a people who are potentially looking to our boss to be advocated for.

It’s our responsibility and so it’s your responsibility to say okay let me figure out what’s going on here. Now if it’s a boss who is you know discriminating or just does not like you right and right that’s a different story but we need to first investigate and figure out what’s going on.

Why is another person being advocated for and not me what is it that we can come together on to close the gap in communication between myself and my boss so that there isn’t that hesitation.

But I do encourage you to try and look.

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Look underneath the surface, read between the lines, and sense if there is hesitation and what that might be. Yeah, that’s such great advice, Patricia, because even as you’re sharing all these really great tips, I’m thinking back to some of the recent clients I’ve worked with in that exact situation where it was very clear that their boss was advocating for one person on the team and not themselves, not others.

So we went through that exercise you recommended and kind of got to the root of it to figure out, okay, where’s the disconnect and how do we close that gap?

But obviously in a way that isn’t, like, where you don’t have to try to be the boss’s pet or whatever, but there are tactics that you can do once you figure out what that missing link is to close that gap and at least meet your boss part way so that they can…

Feel comfortable advocating for you, no matter what that initial hesitation was on their side.

Patricia Ortega

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, as you’re talking, what’s kind of crystallizing in my mind is there is a process to this that we can probably, you know, not probably, that we can share with you as you’re having coffee here with us.

And that first part is getting really clear. What is it that I want? And now I can communicate that to my boss so that they can advocate for me.

The second part is, you know, figuring out if there’s any kind of assumptions, misalignment of expectations, hesitations, anything like that, so that you and your boss are both basically on the same team.

So first, get clear on what you want. Second, make sure you and your boss are on the same team going towards the same mission.

And the third thing that, Juliana, you alluded to is making sure that they understand how to advocate for you, meaning make things easy for them.

And this is where this, you know, skill of. I feel like most professionals nowadays need to have some sense, some, you know, foundation of marketing principles, really persuasive communication principles to be able to help in this area.

And what I’m talking about are, you know, you should have an elevator pitch, right? And that sounds incredibly generic, but what I mean by an elevator pitch is you should know if you jump into an elevator with your boss’s boss, you should be able to immediately tell your boss’s boss, hey, I’m working on X, Y, and Z projects, which are moving the business goals forward.

And so that way you’re showing them that you’re thinking beyond just your job and beyond your department and you’re making your boss look good.

So, so part of this is, is being able to have talking points, right? And so this, yes, you share with your leader’s leader in an elevator, but also you just start speaking these points out to your boss and in meetings, right?

You have. Specific talking points that are short phrases that they can remember. When you share accomplishments with them, I was just talking to a client, literally, I think it was yesterday.

Yeah, yesterday I was just talking to a client. And part of our conversation was they were trying to get together all their wins from their first 90 days.

Now, the important part, yes, was documenting all their wins. But after we put a list down that was really hard to remember because it was so long, they were very well accomplished in their first 90 days.

The more important part, or I guess equally important part, is to then put that whole page of accomplishments into just a couple of maybe three to five high-value metric and information-rich bullets that can be easily remembered.

So they were saying, oh, I helped one of our team members to learn a framework. She said, I helped them to learn a legal framework, and that legal framework helped us to cover.

What normally we would cover, you know, one department’s needs in an hour, we got to the point where we were able to cover six department’s needs in an hour.

So that framework was incredibly helpful for that particular team member. What we did with that is we said, okay, your bullet here is that you were able to 6x, right?

You were able to accelerate the progress on this cross-departmental communication by 6x. That is huge. So being able to document your wins, but then also spend time putting them into short talking points is going to be really helpful because now it helps them, A, remember it, and then B, share it with others.

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Yeah, I love how simply you explain that whole process because anyone who’s paying attention, you should go back and listen to what Patricia just said.

She’s basically giving you a blueprint of how to put together your elevator pitch. And kind of what I wanted to dovetail off of was…

I… I really love that exercise because it’s also holding yourself accountable for figuring out what your value add is to the company, right?

So many times I’ll work with clients and they’ll say, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know what I can do.

But as we have the conversation, I end up challenging them basically on the perception of, you know, I have no success stories to share or, you know, I don’t know what I can put into my elevator pitch.

And it is that exercise of sitting down and being like, okay, what is it that I bring to the table?

What is it that the, what is the value that I want people to see? Because they’ll say, I want to be known for my value or I just want them to know that I have value and that I contribute.

But what? Right? I mean, obviously, you know, but having that as a concrete list, like Patricia said. It really helps not only with the tactics of getting yourself out there, putting together your elevator pitch, but also shifting your mindset a little bit to be like, yeah, I do have value and these are the concrete, specific things that I bring to the table.

And that then becomes handy with not only getting promotions, but asking for a raise and all those things that everyone’s trying to do to elevate their careers.

Patricia Ortega

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I can see how all these pieces kind of tie together. And, you know, ultimately, you know, we’ve been chatting here for 20 or so minutes, right?

Ultimately, it’s a shift in mindset. It’s a reframe, right? If, and again, I’m going to split this into two tracks.

There’s the track of, no, I’ve done all these things and my boss is not advocating for me. So let me take that other avenue of advocating for.

Myself, right? And at some point, you’re like, managing up is not working. Let me go and, you know, share my wins, right?

But then the other track is, oh, I didn’t actually realize that I hadn’t taken the time to get clear.

I hadn’t taken the time not only to clarify my goals, but also to clarify what exactly I need to get there in very clear terms to say, I want to get to a director level position.

And in order to do that, I need to get experience with budgeting, or I need to get experience with a larger team or whatever the case might be.

So being able to clarify your goals and ask what you need. So those two pieces, manage up, and then kind of self-advocacy and that entire mindset throughout the organization are going to help you to ultimately grow regardless who your boss is.

And so as we start to kind of wrap up, I hear land the plane a lot on podcast episodes.

So as we start to land the plane, Juliana, what are some final thoughts that you would kind of leave us with on this topic?

Julianna Yau Yorgan

That’s a really good question. I think the main thing is really going back to getting really clear on your goals and your expectations.

Because if you don’t have that figured out, the rest is just going to feel so hard. Because even if it’s just like talking to yourself or journaling or however you need to get to it to a point where you can actually articulate beyond a statement like, I want to be valued or I want to be visible.

What does visibility mean to you? Right? How will you know that you’re visible? How will you know that people know your value?

Right? Just asking yourself questions like that so that you’re really, really specific on what it is you can want to accomplish.

And then once you have all of that, the rest can feel so much easier. Because otherwise you’re just running around saying, I need visibility.

I need visibility. But there’s not enough concreteness to that statement to really build a plan that will help you get to that visibility.

Patricia Ortega

And Julianna, I know you have a plan for that. Like you literally help people to build that visibility when they’re in that position.

So I think that’s incredibly helpful for folks who are in that situation. And of course, you have Julianna’s link in the description if you want to reach out to her.

I think on the flip side, a final thought for me is I think of the phrase like make advocacy frictionless, like take away the friction.

This is where a lot of what I do comes in, which is a lot of the branding. And this is where we take all of your accomplishments, but we package it in a way that’s really easy to understand, remember, and share.

So that’s what you want. You want people to be able to see your value clearly, which starts with what Julianna was talking about.

Get really clear on your value, but then put it in a way that people understand it. They absorb it quickly.

Think about, you know, reading 10 pages of. A dense text versus reading a bulleted one-pager that has three bullets, an infographic, and one statement.

You are going to understand the concept, even though the 10 pages has more information. You’re going to understand, you’re going to remember, and you’re to share the concept so much easier.

And so that would be my final thought on that.

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Oh, I love that so much. And even earlier, I think you said something like, just make it easy for them.

Which I think is really the key point for that whole bit. Because with that really solid brand package, which I know, Patricia, you’ve got tons of resources on that as well on your website.

But that is a really key thing, especially if you’re trying to manage up and hold your leaders accountable. Because they’re busy.

I mean, honestly, any leader out there, if you can make something easy for them. You’re not take Maybe. Maybe.

Easy yes, an easy thing to check off their list. They’ll probably do it. But if they need to put in the effort, they’re probably not.

So if you can get to that point, like Patricia said, of having it really easy for them to understand a few bullet points that they can refer to, you’re golden.

Patricia Ortega

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, this episode is here for you. Put these pieces into practice. If you listen, that’s great.

You have knowledge, but it’s not going to change anything until you put it into practice. So, my friend, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

We are wrapping up this episode here. Know that no matter what, you can reach either Julianna or myself on LinkedIn and at our links, which are in the description.

And until the next one, reach out to us if you have any questions and we’ll talk to you soon.

Julianna Yau Yorgan

Bye.