How you know
You've turned the step up down twice and never said what you'd say yes to.
Something to say
“I don't want to manage people. Here's what I'd want instead, if it exists here.”
It's easier to spot this afterwards than at the time. Give it a week before you decide it isn't yours.
Two ways in
One is a habit. The other is one person.
Neither is the better one. Pick whichever matches the thing that is actually bothering you.
On your own
The habit, not the incident.
Turning down the obvious ladder is a reasonable choice. It isn't a plan. The plan is the part only you can supply, because nobody else knows what you'd want instead.
- Say what growing would look like for you, specifically enough that somebody could act on it.
- Ask whether there's a path here that isn't management. If the answer is no, that's useful information about this place rather than about you.
- Take one piece of the bigger job and try it — a review, a decision, something that spans two teams — instead of choosing between all of it and none of it.
With somebody in mind
The same friction, one person.
A no with nothing after it leaves the other person nothing to offer next. So they offer the same thing again in six months, and you say no again.
- Give them the alternative in one sentence they could repeat to somebody else. A no plus a sentence is a conversation. A no on its own is a file note.
- Ask what they were trying to solve by offering it. Sometimes the job was the only tool they had, and the problem has another answer.
One of these, not all of them. And in your own words, because ours won't sound like you.
Where this sharpens
It lands hardest with two of the five.
Not because anybody is difficult. These are just the two who reach for something different first, at the same moment.
Which one is yours
You are reading The Developer. Is that actually you?
Ten situations, about three minutes, no sign-up. It tells you which of the five you reach for first — and which version of this page is yours.
Five readings
This plays differently depending on what you reach for first.
Pick the one that sounds most like you. Reading a dimension is not a claim that you are one.