Not Your Job’s Job
At some point we humans connected our Job or Work to our self-worth. I have heard this idea expressed in many ways over the years:
I want my job to give me significance
I want my job to make me feel proud
I want my job to respect my skills and abilities
I want my job to make me feel good about what I do
I want my job to make me feel important
I want my title to tell others who I am and what I have achieved
I want my job to make me feel accomplished and successful
I want my work to make others see how successful I am
The truth is that this is not your job’s job, and work is not designed to do this. Work is just work, it is a collection of people, personalities, tasks, goals, roles, responsibilities, products, services, systems, and other stuff. It really is just a bunch of stuff out there that we engage with day-to-day. It is not designed to help us feel good about ourselves and it is not capable of fulfilling this function, it is just a big complex system, often dysfunctional, continuously evolving and emerging.
Inside an organization, there are two parts to this though – two owners: us and our leaders.
In general, we own how we think about ourselves in the context of work, it is up to us to believe in ourselves and to manage our self-worth, this is done through examining our thinking and beliefs. Well-developed self-confidence and resilience protect us from whatever is going on “out there” and enable us to make choices and decisions that best serve us.
We own where we choose to work and how much we choose to give to our work.
Leaders own creating a working and learning environment that encourages healthy self-confidence and resilience. While a leader cannot change a person’s belief about themselves, a leader can create a culture that supports their people in productive, healthy, and engaging ways. A leader can choose to do this, or not, they too are in choice.
It comes back to us, me, and you, and what we choose to believe about ourselves, our worth, our skills, ability, talents, etc.
As a leader, you have a choice about the culture and environment you create, that choice will come with consequences. You can foster creativity, risk, innovation, passional debate, engagement, etc. or you can create an environment of command and control, where people do what you ask, and only what you ask them to do. And you can do both depending on what the business and what each role requires, and this can be situational, people specific, time-specific, timebound, and spontaneous or planned, or….
However you choose to lead to meet the challenges and circumstances of the moment, you can still involve your people in a way that encourages them to embrace thinking and beliefs that maintain self-confidence and resilience. This is leading with intention; being thoughtful in your approach and in the way your choices will impact others.