Juliana Chyzhova climbed to CMO, running a 65-person marketing team, then gave up the team to go back to doing the work herself as an individual contributor. She wrote about her career move in Fortune this past August and is part of a fast-growing group questioning whether automatically accepting a leadership position is their best play.

Gallup's global data shows manager engagement fell nine points in a single year, the sharpest year-over-year drop on record, from 27% in 2024 down to 22% in 2025. For a lot of people who took a promotion, the role turned into an entirely different job than the one they signed up for. A growing number are learning to spot that shift early enough to negotiate the scope, comp, and seniority before they ever say yes, and skipping the headcount that used to come bundled with all three.

Spot the Pattern Before You're in It

What Juliana describes has a name: conscious unbossing. Originally coined by UK-based global recruitment firm Robert Walters, it’s the choice to decline the people-management track while staying fully in the game at a senior level.

In Juliana’s case, she didn't step down in scope. She became the founding marketer at AGI Inc., writing her own copy, building her own decks, and owning every channel. The seniority she earned was entirely hands-on, with total ownership of the work.

Most people get offered the title first and negotiate everything else after they've said yes. Poker strategy has a name for a sequence this predictable: the standard line, aka the default way a hand gets played when nobody at the table deviates from what's expected. Catching the pattern before you're three moves into the conversation is what turns a default yes into a deliberate choice.

Decide the Terms Before You Sit Down

Juliana's new title, founding marketer, is still senior. It just doesn't come with a single direct report. That's the move: negotiate comp, scope, and visibility on your own terms.

Write it all down before you get to the negotiating table:

The number: a specific, non-round dollar figure with data to back it.
The project or client list you want ownership of, shared in advance.
A reasonable title of your choosing, one that communicates ‘seniority’.
Whose visibility shapes your success? (e.g.: your manager's manager, a cross-functional group, a board of directors, etc.).

Keep in mind that managers and individual contributors negotiate raises and benefits the exact same way: a specific case with a specific number. Decide yours before the conversation starts, and the management track stops being the only door to a bigger paycheck.

Decline Tactfully and Deliberately

Start by acknowledging what an offer means: someone saw the quality work you’ve been doing and wanted more of it. After, move straight into what your real value is.

Try this: "I sincerely appreciate the offer — it’s confirmation I’m doing something right. The most value I can add here is staying hands-on, inside the work itself. To do that, I’ll need this scope and title, at this base, without taking on a direct team."

That's the complete ask: credit for the offer, the case for the role you're better suited to, and a clear boundary around your status as an individual contributor. State it in that order, and the decline reads like the strategic decision-making call it is.

Keep the Arrangement from Drifting

This setup won’t necessarily hold itself in place. Left unchecked, the ownership limits you negotiated may get handed back in small pieces and your pay could stay flat if nobody flags how your role has changed. Every performance review is your opportunity to re-negotiate the terms.

Pull up what you negotiated at the start and compare it to what you're doing now. If the scope grew and the comp didn't, raise it in your next review. If someone floats the people-management role again, treat it as a decision point: restate the terms if the arrangement still fits, or take the role if your own priorities have shifted. Either way, it's your call to make.

What would your next promotion conversation look like if you walked in knowing you held the better hand?