Should I ask to go back to my old role?

[Barbarella73]

I work in an information management sector and took on a new role last year as Chief of Staff to my CEO. She is fantastic to work with, and I have learned a lot from her. However, the reason I took on the role was to do more strategic work and that hasn’t materialised on a regular basis. I support her with project work from time to time, but of course she also has the support of the executives and their departments in this, and so it is difficult to be credited for this work.

I am swimming in operational work that I cannot get over the line in a timely manner (or sometimes not at all) because I prepare it on her behalf and she needs to approve it before I can finalise it. I have a weekly meeting with her for this, which regularly has to be cancelled or postponed due to more urgent matters.

i recently applied for a role in another company at my current level and I wasn’t shortlisted. This time last year I interviewed for roles at a higher level, having been shortlisted. I chose to stay put, as I had taken my current role, but I now feel like my current role is hindering rather than helping me, and I am wondering whether I should ask to transfer back to my previous role which is still open as it requires a particular skill set, though the company will be recruiting for it soon. It turns out that there more scope for me to do strategic work in my previous role, and I could take credit for everything I did. I loved the work and was sorry to leave it - I thought it was for something even better.

Apologies that this so long. I’m struggling with the decision as I don’t want to let my CEO down and I fear it will reflect badly on her if I ‘leave’ her.

[Welliwould]

I agree that your previous role sounds better and it would probably be better for you. I think you need to manage this carefully though. You need a career check in with your CEO so you can explain why this new role isn't working for you and see if there is anything that can be changed so that it will be what you wanted and expected. If the answer is no then go back to your previous role. What you've now got doesn't work for you so a change is needed.

[Barbarella73]

Yes, I will definitely need to speak with her. I like her enormously, she has a brilliant mind. Maybe I will bring along the role description and ask her if she can give me examples of some elements. One of them is ‘Driving process changes’, which I can’t understand in the context of the role as the processes are developed within individual departments.
thank you so much for your advice, I really appreciate it!

[WhiteCatmas]

Go, if you take a role at another company she’ll lose you anyhow.