I have been with my current company, a start-up, for almost 2 years.
I was hired for job A. I early on also took on job B because 1) it was needed 2) I need the information from job B to do part of job A, and 3) I had bandwidth. Every time I tried to implement tactics/strategies for job A that I've found success with in previous roles, I was met with tension or dismissiveness. When I tried to drive strategy in that role, my boss would override me. It didn't bug me much as that is typical in this type of role and I've experienced it. My time and responsibilities greatly shifted to be more in job B. In part because I saw and felt the value I bring in job B, but never felt that I brought value to job A. I said this before to my boss and he told me it was in my imagination. In November of last year we had a conversation where he was basically asking me if I wanted to have job A or job B. I told him, from a career perspective, job A, but from a how do I bring value to the company, job B. I got his and leadership's support to transition job B elsewhere by Christmas. We got that transition started then, but of course it took time. And at that same time, my boss would tell me how much they value me and that he talked to leadership about "taking care of me" at the end of the year. Nearly a month ago (so a month after singing my praises), I'm told (politely and professionally) that I'm great at execution but suck at strategy. That I need to step it up so he can step back from this area of work by the end of Q1. He asked if I was open to weekly coaching sessions, of course, I said yes. And I immediately began dumping job B responsibilities that I was still involved in. Since then our relationship is strained, every swing I take is a miss, and some of my job A responsibilities have quietly shifted toward others. I REALLY didn't want to have to job search because of personal issues that this job gives me enough freedom to support. I'm realizing that I at least need to be ready to job search if I'm let go, but should I confront my boss? Ask him what the heck happened? He went from singing my praises to not and then has disappeared from coaching. I'm at a loss. I've been working for 21 years and I've never felt like I was at risk of losing my job due to performance. I feel like there is something else going on that I'm not aware of. I have a lot going on personally too which makes dealing with this uncertainty and stress at work even harder. I'm truly at a loss...