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This is the ultimate no man's land. In this situation you will find as many things are going right as are going wrong. Your bosses are probably inaccessible and difficult to deal with. Your requests for feedback, MIS support are met with cold shoulders. Information is rarely forthcoming and only obtained at great cost to you.

 

In this predicament you are powerless to control your own destiny. On the other hand, you are probably left with insufficient resources to handle your assignments. This disenchants your immediate subordinates who recognized that you are getting no outside support. Thus they are likely to want to curry favor with your opponents rather than perform your tasks.

 

So you are compromised on many fronts. Then what are your remaining options? They are few and difficult to implement.

 

In order to succeed you will need to be slow and systematic.  Attempt to form strategic alliances with like-minded people. They will befriend you and understand your problems. They will also wish to avoid this happening to them so they will be there when you need them.

 

Attempt to do what you do best. That is – refocus on your strengths and cut to the bone any unnecessary initiatives, which might get you into further trouble. This will amplify your achievement level despite the high level of adversity. Also take on projects where less approval is required.

Be a good manager in the sense that you may be asked to perform beyond the boundaries of your job description. Be emotionally adept by becoming a comfort zone for people with problems and needs.  This will help you to gain friends.  If they ask you to jump, you should ask “how high?” Offer yourself as fish bait. Self sacrifice will get you out of jams and give you a good ‘soldier or Boy Scout image' which you will need to escape your predicament. But do it carefully so that in the end you are not indeed sacrificed.

 

Be very steady so that others can rely on your behaviors.  This will result in you being considered more useful to your bosses and less threatening by everyone. They will not need to monitor and control you as much. 

 

Predictability builds trust and will propel you out of your bottom top position. You may also be called upon to mitigate the unpredictability of others.

 

You must become more robust in your personal style. Personality conflicts are usually the cause of this disenchantment. These are difficult to overcome. If this is the case, pinpoint the exact areas you need to upgrade and do it.

 

Lastly, if society has really got your number, then this no man's land is where they are likely to leave you.  So be realistic about situations which involve repetitive failures.  A common example is you trying your best but still find yourself unable to overcome basic problems.  In which case there is unlikely to be any upside whatever you do.  All I can suggest is you take some extreme measures which might dig you out of some hole you are in.