So disheartened by my boss

[SuperLiliac]

In my review I said to my boss that I would like work toward promotion to the next band. His reply was "Woah girl!"....then saying "you're not ready, would you agree?"

I have pushed on working on my promo case and have been working internally with a wonderful mentor who has been a breath of fresh air. I feel valued and heard by her. She is more senior than him. She has said she thinks I'm.reafy for promo so I have told him this knowng he would never encourage me of his own accord.

We reviewed my application and I asked him if he thought I was ready. There was a pause.....then...you won't look.like a chump for applying. Later he said I had been working at the higher band for over a year.

Our mid yesr rating to reflect working at higher band is 4 but I could see he marked me 3. I queried it.....he said...the comment about you working to a higher band was just words to make your application sound good. He then asked if I was taking noted. I said yes. He said he was uncomfortable with that. I said why?. I am just trying to understand. It had escalated at that stage so we agreed to disagree.

I feel really confused and disheartened. Am I missing something? How would you deal with this?

Does your manager need to be involved in you getting a promotion? Is it linked to the box marking so if he gives you a 3 you wouldn't be considered?

One of my personal career goals is "never let others be in charge of your career path or trajectory".

My approach would be - if he doesn't need to be involved, stop talking to him about it and focus on getting the support you need from your mentor. If he does need to be involved, again speak to your mentor for advice, but ultimately in this case if you have a career blocker as a manager you'll need to move on to move up.

Chances are you are working above your current grade and he likes that because it solves a problem for him. And keep taking notes, if he's uncomfortable he shouldn't say things he doesn't want noted should he.

I agree with everything that @youveturnedupwelldone said. Good luck!

Thank you. The rating doesn't affect me applying for promo but would give me a better chance. If I do get promoted I will still be working for him unfortunately. We are a small team in a largish organisation. The work we do has some cross over with each other but becoming more separate so I can distance myself a bit more. He also has a habit of letting calls he is hosting run on for much longer than the scheduled time. I will be stricter on my time with this going forward as it's a real drain and waste of everyone's time.

I had a boss like this. He was a total pain in the arse. In the end I moved teams and got promoted but it took an extra couple of years. If you have a solid business case for progression he shouldn't be able to block it so just keep focused and ignore him.

He isn't supporting you, possible threatened - higher grade you work more juicy work you would want, then who does the basic stuff too. Lots of elements to this. All I would say is put a time cap on it otherwise years will fly by... once that time has passed, its time to go external.