Chasing Purpose (and Titles)
What do you want to be when you grow up? We’re asked this question in elementary school, then again in middle school, high school, college, and even graduate school. Usually the answer is something we were told we should be: doctor, lawyer, astronaut — maybe some teachers are even creative enough to get their students to dream of being a teacher. No one wakes up one day in their childhood and realizes their dream of middle management in a financial firm. Maybe by the time you’re in your teenage years you start to dream of wearing hoodies (like me) and working for a cool place like a video game company (not quite like me, but we do work with a lot of cool verticals).
Chasing Titles
Most of our careers we are trained to aspire to have the bigger or better title. You want more money, right? Get a promotion. Maybe you want responsibility, maybe you want power, maybe you want to invade a peaceful country. We all live very short lives on the scale of history. Did you know that your grandmother also had a grandmother, and she the same?
Whatever your motivation, in the USA, we live in a capitalist society. We are driven by achievement and success. We measure that (often) by wealth and income. To get income, one has to push themselves at work. There is an awkward transition point that we all need to go through in our careers. It is often referenced in MBA courses as the point of inflection where someone decides between becoming a technical specialist or a leader. The figure below is a solid representation of that curve in your career. As you develop certain skills across a career, some of the value of those skills rise and fall depending on where you are in the “ideal” journey from professional to executive (if that’s your goal).
For the purposes of this conversation, I am not going to launch into a conversation about how great our enlisted military members are and how awkward it is that sometimes we have two college graduates staring at each other and simply because one is an officer…wait, I said I was not going to talk about that…
Anyway, maybe you’re pursuing a cool title like one of the class of General Officers. Or instead, on the commercial path, you want to be a vice-president or president of some organization. Along that path you will make a lot of mistakes and gain a lot of influence. Check out this highly scientific path of influence over a career.
Influence is cool, right? With great power comes great responsibility, Peter [Parker]. Well, it is cool. Leadership means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Taking on the political burden, looking out for your employees’ best interests, keeping the company (or command) running successfully, keeping our warfighters alive — to mention a few.
The journey up the corporate or public ladder is not the same for everyone. If it was, no one would profit from the next leadership training or book to be written. Every leader has a different style and I have seen many that I sit in awe of, and many that I find to be undesirable. For example, those who are inspirational by their actions far exceed those who are threatening and generate fear. There are hundreds of levers to pull when dealing with teams and people, I just happen to prefer the ones that generate fewer scars when possible.
My journey professionally brought me from mid-career to executive over the past few years. It is something I desperately wanted throughout my career. After all, I did not dream of the mid-management dream when I was in my formative years. In this jump to influencer within an organization, the meaning of leadership has changed significantly. It is not about the work I am capable of delivering in Excel, PowerPoint, Jira, Sales Force, Marketo, etc. The journey included expertise in many of these tools and sometimes even certification without using the tools from pure curiosity and possibly insanity.
The transition has given me a new perspective. One where the mistakes I make cascade a lot further, but I still need to make them. One where pride and capability of a team has never been higher. As president of a company, I get to enjoy a lot of highly rewarding work and partner with a lot of highly capable people in the technology industry.
BUT…
All of the accolades of a professional journey, all of the growth, all of the people along the way pale (sorry, friends) in comparison to the most important and least influential title I have ever earned: father. Let’s adjust our highly scientific influence graph for a more personal look:
While in the hospital, it quickly became clear that the role as an executive of a company or spouse were great… you’re doing great… you’re great… and no one cares. The beginning of a new life takes a strong role in the family, ties an ACME anvil to your legs and drops you in the ocean. The kindest of doctors, nurses, and assistants will quickly make clear that your role is a support role from here on out. Support the twins, the mother of your twins, your dog, that banana peel, the dirty diapers, and somewhere a few miles lower, yourself.
And yet, this is the title I am most proud to have. Our journey was long and hard, and now we have two of the most precious fighters of children that joined us on the outside a few weeks earlier than anticipated. They are tiny. They are fragile. And they are the most important thing I have ever done in my life. While we were in the hospital, Dr. Grant posted another little blurb on LinkedIn that was again relevant to my current circumstances.
While I am an executive in a really cool company, my biggest and most pride-filled achievement will always be becoming a father. To Calvin and Evelyn: it is my sincere hope that in the work I do both raising you and as a professional attempting to afford your future bills — that the work and life I lead makes you proud.
