I despise work titles.
I say the above noting that, during my working lifetime, I’ve had a variety of titles…
…from the high (Vice President of Human Resources)…
…to the ironic “Account Executive” (which is almost never an actual executive)…
…to the mundane “Manager”…
…to the entry level (Customer Service Representative, Child Care Worker, etc.)…
…and tons in-between. They were all, for the most part, dumb.
Taking a step back for a minute, I confess that some titles (or parts of titles) serve a useful purpose in, for example, identifying where someone works. “Manager of Accounting”, for example, tells us that this person works in the accounting department. The “Manager” part? Not quite sure. In a large part, to manage something means to exert some level of control over it. For example, we can manage our time, and our expenses. People? They are far harder to control.
Ah, the notion of control.
Maybe that’s where this stuff all comes from, namely a way to use titles to exert some measure of control over others. This by, the way, is an equal dose of bull*hit, as in the moment that control must be required of other humans, then barring life and death struggles, it becomes an exercise in the promotion of passive resistance. This idea is backed up by scholars of leadership styles, who have noted* that an over-use of a directive leadership style does far more harm than good. As I explained once to a manager, “The only time you get to yell at your staff is if there is a fire and you need them to head to the exits. Otherwise, don’t do it.”. This is the part that the military gets right about titles and directive leadership: They are dealing with actual life and death stuff, unlike that obnoxious director of “X Department”.
I do, by the way, have a title at work. I was required to add it to my email signature. That part of my signature has mysteriously disappeared, at least for now. See above.
Another point about titles that some don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about is this: Titles provide air-cover for poor leadership. Such things have a tendency to add legitimacy to people who may not, in fact, deserve it. Ask yourself if the person you report to has earned the right to be followed by you. Would you willingly listen to this person if they did not have some kind of power over your career? Titles infer a certain level of competency and quality of character that is not always deserved.
I think there is a better way. Specifically, what if we got rid of all work titles and replaced them with three:
- Individual Contributor [Department] – Someone who does not have staff reporting to them.
- Leader [Department] – Someone who has staff reporting to them.
- Executive [Department] – Someone in the business of making strategic decisions for the organization.
So “Assistant Vice President of New Accounts” would be “Leader, New Accounts”.
It’s just an idea, and it’s far from perfect. But the current system is even further from perfect, so there’s that to consider.
Ideas aside, the real issue here is that work titles are yet another example of the very human desire among some to prove their worth and pad an ego, even when both are not warranted. No work title I have ever had made me really feel all that much better about myself, and having grown up in a home that centered around heavy-handed control, I have never had a desire to lord over anyone. Heck, I can barely lord over myself. I have also, by the way, been told that I am a good person to report to…which is mostly because I take the radical stance of treating others the way I would want to be treated.
Sometimes the most complex problems have the simplest solutions.
(*) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/6-leadership-styles-directive-part-1-brent-pederson/
