– by Dennis Passovoy –
This is a question that probably has more to do with corporate culture than it does with personal satisfaction. Sure, there is that time when you received your first promotion and you took a stack of business cards home to your mother. But that aside, the issue of what people are called in your organization tells others something about how you position and market your company.
Some companies are traditional in their approach to job titles. Their employees are Manager of this-or-that, Director of something or Vice President of whatever.
Other organizations don’t seem to value titles much at all. Case in point: banks. In every bank branch I’ve ever walked into it seems like everyone that works there is a vice president (aside from the tellers).
And others still, are very creative. Examples include Chief People Officer, Director of Human Possibilities, Director of First Impressions, and Director of Interplanetary Relations (when this creative director for an ad agency in Austin, TX was asked what his job title meant, his response was “You’ll know when the ships arrive!”).
From my perspective, however, job titles probably cause more negative feelings amongst our employees than they are worth. Their nature is anti-team – causing employees to feel badly about themselves and others in the company when someone else receives the job title they thought they should have received. They generate a notion of inequality (i.e., power distance) between team members, which in my opinion, can lead to social loafing (i.e., deferring action and decisions to their “superiors”).
If our goal as leaders is to create “unstoppable organizations” and maximize creativity and productivity, then these types of behaviors are counter-productive.
And if you believe, as I do, that words matter, are we really contributing positively to our bottom-line by awarding job titles?
Dennis Passovoy is the president of RFG, Inc., an Employee Engagement Advisory firm in Austin, TX that believes in inspiring and harnessing the limitless power of individuals to create unstoppable organizations. He can be reached at dpassovoy@rfg.com.
