This week I have been thinking about and discussing career development. When we start our professional lives a career path looks quite linear and straightforward; as our careers progress this road starts to look more nuanced. Most of us initially aspire to be a head of practice, a partner, a general counsel or equivalent, and these are all laudable ambitions which many of us achieve. We want to be recognised and rewarded and climbing the, sometimes slippery, pole of management and title looks the obvious way to do this and achieve recognition and reward.
What is perhaps less appreciated is that as professionals there are legitimate alternative or parallel paths to a rewarding working life. I say this admittedly with the perspective of having been fortunate and privileged enough to have done many of these things. However, I think that the lesson I have learned and seen in others is that before, after and even during leadership roles professional work has its own rewards which are independent of formal positions in any organisation. This is because the tasks which we do – negotiating a complex multi-million pound outsourcing agreement, acting on a major corporate deal, or carrying out a complex medical procedure – require immense skill and care and often leadership of a different kind as you work with clients and fellow professionals around you to achieve a common goal.
In order to appreciate this subtlety of professional life it helps to have an open mindset, being ready to consider alternative routes to creating a filling and rewarding working life. See Carol Dweck’s great book Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential in which she extols the virtue of being open to new ideas. She describes the opposite, a fixed mindset, as "Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset— creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over."
In reality everyone is at times a leader. Even traditional leadership styles, with a linear relationship between bosses and workers, are evolving into a more flexible approach. Established top down hierarchical management systems no longer always works. There is a move towards more fluid structures utilising networks. See this article Beyond Leadership by Matthias Molleney who says work and workplaces are undergoing fundamental changes enabled by digitisation but going deeper observing “Less visible, but just as important are the new structures and processes being created that require a new under- standing of leadership. Traditional management methods rely heavily on clear reporting lines and the physical presence of the managers and the managed. Modern organizations, however, are saying farewell to hierarchical structures and are instead relying on agile networks.” He cites an approach by Patrick Cowden a former CEO of Dell Germany who in his book Neustart advocates focusing on people not tools and processes. “His solution is based on the idea that people achieve more together if they are not working next to each other or with each other, but instead FOR one another, if they feel connected to each other, and if they are committed to jointly agreed goals. The traditional power struggles and jealously guarded fiefdoms within an organization do not stand a chance if participants are connected with each other. Cowden calls it ‘the power of connect’.”
In this context we are all networked leaders to some degree and can contribute richly to any work or project and have a fulfilling role without being formally nominated and selected as “the boss”. See this Forbes article We’re All Leaders Here which explains “Why encouraging a leadership culture will become the new standard in employee experience.” and proposes “embedding a culture of leadership throughout [an] organisation” commenting that the “lesson starts with empowering employees to lead within their area of responsibility by optimizing, re-designing, and adapting as needed. When employees have this freedom, organizations are more agile, customer-centric, and resilient. Perhaps more importantly, it lays the ground for the next evolution of the employee experience, which is centered on worker agency and innovation.”
It is against this backdrop that having the, albeit entirely laudable ambition, to be the boss or take the next step up the management chain is not the only way to achieve a rich and fulfilling life as a professional. Indeed there is an argument that it gets in the way. I remember the senior partner of a law firm I worked for bemoaning the fact that his role prevented as much contact as he would have liked with his clients. He like others I have worked with and for as a lawyer in private practice and industry, returned to a fulfilling life doing client centred work after his time as senior partner ended.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating a world without leaders: I have worked for and been inspired by a number of leaders in my career and hopefully at times have inspired others. I just think that being the “nominated” leader in any professional practice is not the be all and end all of career aspirations. We can have rewarding and productive professional working lives influencing and doing, and leading and learning in our own right and context, without having to be in the C-Suite.
The American author John C Maxwell said “Everyone is a leader because everyone influences someone.”
And the author Robin S. Sharma once commented “Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It's about impact, influence, and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire your team-mates and customers”.
While the philosopher and writer Lao Tzu said “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”
Professional working life is, as with most of life, about getting the most out of every day and every work opportunity - whether or not you are the designated leader.
What is perhaps less appreciated is that as professionals there are legitimate alternative or parallel paths to a rewarding working life. I say this admittedly with the perspective of having been fortunate and privileged enough to have done many of these things. However, I think that the lesson I have learned and seen in others is that before, after and even during leadership roles professional work has its own rewards which are independent of formal positions in any organisation. This is because the tasks which we do – negotiating a complex multi-million pound outsourcing agreement, acting on a major corporate deal, or carrying out a complex medical procedure – require immense skill and care and often leadership of a different kind as you work with clients and fellow professionals around you to achieve a common goal.
In order to appreciate this subtlety of professional life it helps to have an open mindset, being ready to consider alternative routes to creating a filling and rewarding working life. See Carol Dweck’s great book Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential in which she extols the virtue of being open to new ideas. She describes the opposite, a fixed mindset, as "Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset— creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over."
In reality everyone is at times a leader. Even traditional leadership styles, with a linear relationship between bosses and workers, are evolving into a more flexible approach. Established top down hierarchical management systems no longer always works. There is a move towards more fluid structures utilising networks. See this article Beyond Leadership by Matthias Molleney who says work and workplaces are undergoing fundamental changes enabled by digitisation but going deeper observing “Less visible, but just as important are the new structures and processes being created that require a new under- standing of leadership. Traditional management methods rely heavily on clear reporting lines and the physical presence of the managers and the managed. Modern organizations, however, are saying farewell to hierarchical structures and are instead relying on agile networks.” He cites an approach by Patrick Cowden a former CEO of Dell Germany who in his book Neustart advocates focusing on people not tools and processes. “His solution is based on the idea that people achieve more together if they are not working next to each other or with each other, but instead FOR one another, if they feel connected to each other, and if they are committed to jointly agreed goals. The traditional power struggles and jealously guarded fiefdoms within an organization do not stand a chance if participants are connected with each other. Cowden calls it ‘the power of connect’.”
In this context we are all networked leaders to some degree and can contribute richly to any work or project and have a fulfilling role without being formally nominated and selected as “the boss”. See this Forbes article We’re All Leaders Here which explains “Why encouraging a leadership culture will become the new standard in employee experience.” and proposes “embedding a culture of leadership throughout [an] organisation” commenting that the “lesson starts with empowering employees to lead within their area of responsibility by optimizing, re-designing, and adapting as needed. When employees have this freedom, organizations are more agile, customer-centric, and resilient. Perhaps more importantly, it lays the ground for the next evolution of the employee experience, which is centered on worker agency and innovation.”
It is against this backdrop that having the, albeit entirely laudable ambition, to be the boss or take the next step up the management chain is not the only way to achieve a rich and fulfilling life as a professional. Indeed there is an argument that it gets in the way. I remember the senior partner of a law firm I worked for bemoaning the fact that his role prevented as much contact as he would have liked with his clients. He like others I have worked with and for as a lawyer in private practice and industry, returned to a fulfilling life doing client centred work after his time as senior partner ended.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating a world without leaders: I have worked for and been inspired by a number of leaders in my career and hopefully at times have inspired others. I just think that being the “nominated” leader in any professional practice is not the be all and end all of career aspirations. We can have rewarding and productive professional working lives influencing and doing, and leading and learning in our own right and context, without having to be in the C-Suite.
The American author John C Maxwell said “Everyone is a leader because everyone influences someone.”
And the author Robin S. Sharma once commented “Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It's about impact, influence, and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire your team-mates and customers”.
While the philosopher and writer Lao Tzu said “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”
Professional working life is, as with most of life, about getting the most out of every day and every work opportunity - whether or not you are the designated leader.
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