Corporate America continues to slash their ranks of middle managers. Data from Live Data Technologies, as reported by the WSJ, shows that U.S. public companies have cut their middle-manager headcounts by about 6% over the past 4 years.
That may (or may not) lead to more efficiency.
But what it definitely means is that professionals need to work with much less management support. You may hail this as good news if your manager tended to be more of a hindrance than a helper. However, you’re now navigating a changing workplace—possibly remotely—on your own.
Here are 4 strategies to help you thrive:
1) Learn all you can
Many employees wait to get training from their managers or their in-house corporate learning systems. Or, even worse, they resist this training.
That’s a mistake. Proactively investing in your own learning—even if you don’t have a manager prodding you to do so—is a way to future-proof your career.
Attend workshops and conferences. Find all the training inside your company and take it, even when you think you don’t have time. Check out online courses which offer a lot of resources, often for free. And of course, use AI technology to help you in your own learning and development.
Don’t just focus on the skills you need to do your job. Diversify your skill set by learning complementary areas. For example, if you’re in marketing, you could build skills in data analysis. If you’re an engineer, you could learn more about product management.
Adjacent skills will help you stretch and grow, and can open doors to new roles, making you more secure and sought after.
2) Elevate your interpersonal skills
Your job-related skills are important, but especially in the age of AI, they likely have an expiration date.
Not so with people skills. When you develop your ability to work with people you open up a big landscape of effectiveness—to say nothing of enhancing your enjoyment of work.
One of the most important skills you can build is emotional regulation. Work can be intense, often frustrating. It’s easy to get caught up in your own emotions and—since emotions are catching—other people’s as well.
Staying even-keeled pays off in maintaining good relationships with peers and also keeping yourself clear-headed so you can problem-solve when things go wrong.
You can work on your emotional self-control by learning the tools of journaling and mindfulness.
3) Learn to communicate
There are so many ways we communicate at work: large public presentations, 1-1s, and town halls. And then of course there’s email, Slack, text, and all the other ways we’re called upon to talk with our fingers and thumbs.
Have you ever been in a presentation that drones on and on? Have you ever dealt with a misunderstanding because you or someone else was careless on email? If so you know the peril of poor or even average communication skills.
When you communicate powerfully, you navigate more easily. You get what you need more efficiently, you sell your ideas, and you build better relationships.
All of these outcomes are useful when you’re on your own to build a case for getting promoted.
The best way to build these skills is to practice. Volunteer to give large presentations and ask for feedback. Craft your emails and slack messages with an understanding of the receiver and ask them if they have suggestions for you. Notice others who have a good style and try to incorporate the parts of their style that you like into your own repertoire.
4) Build meaningful networks
If you don’t have a good manager who’s helping you, build a network you can turn to for support. Your internal network can fill in some gaps that a good manager would help you with.
For example, if you don’t know how to get something done inside of your company, you can bounce it off others inside your company. Your peers can help you get your work done and people up the chain can help mentor you. All of them know different things from you and have a different lens inside of the organization.
Your network inside your company can also provide the emotional support you would have gotten from your manager. And, when it comes time for you to be promoted, in most companies you need your colleagues to support you.
Look around at your coworkers to see who are the most interesting, plugged-in, or effective. Make it a point to run into them or invite them for coffee. Offer to help people you want to get to know better. And find people senior to you who might be open to mentoring you.
Your external network is also essential. Your external network will help you learn new things and give you a fresh perspective. And your external network is the best source of new opportunities and jobs.
Build your external network by engaging with your peers through industry associations. Find networking events that are comfortable for you, and find ways to use those to meet people in smaller groups.
Your career is always your responsibility. Whether or not you have a manager to help you, use these strategies to ensure you continue to build your career.