Is your Title relevant to your capability?

I was recently looking at some questions on an assessment.  The question that really caught my attention related to title.  What is the highest title you have had?  My immediate thought was that this question is completely irrelevant. I have been training delegates from all walks of life over the past several years and I am always struck by titles given to people when they introduce themselves.  In my decades of working at various organisations titles have confused me and disappointed me. Titles have created an expectation and have created assumptions.

Perhaps I should give you some real life examples to get my point across.

• Head of Strategic Project Management Office. The individual that occupied this title had no managerial skill, no project management skill and insufficient conceptual to create strategy, insufficient technical and interpersonal skill.
• Another example where two people, one an ex-policeman and one an ex-clerk of the court, were both given the title of Engineer while building a road. These individuals had no engineering experience or background what-so-ever.
• Portfolio Manager with the individual occupying this position in the 10^th layer of the organisational structure.
• How about Scrum Master with the individuals having no coaching experience and no understanding of agile or how to lead a team.

So why have a title, perhaps

• a prestigious title fuels the ego of the individual.
• a prestigious title allows an organisation to employ an individual a little more easily than its competitor.
• a prestigious title denotes to the customer that the individual looking after them is the best of the best.

A title should reflect the capability of the individual occupying that title.  Capability is the knowledge, experience and skill that one has today and that is in line with the title.  Therefore the title should reflect one’s performance output today.  Title reflects authority, responsibility and accountability all of which require measurement.  A title should reflect the actual and not the ideal. A title should be in line with the job description that all sectors and society can relate to.

In this day and age do not ever assume that a title denotes capability.  If you are a project manager or program manager make sure that capability matches the title of any assignments given to you.  If you are a human resources manager and therefore in charge of the organisation’s talent in its entirety, make sure the individual you are recruiting has the capability as defined by their previous role and that the title is not creating your perceptions.

In reality titles such as the following mean that:

• A supervisor is the first level of management and their responsibility is to delegate tasks to individuals and coach and encourage those individuals to complete tasks on time and within budget and to quality standards.
• As a manager it is expected that you manage resources or manage customers or manage projects. As a manager this means you have clear sound judgement to prioritise and allocate organisation resources.  As a manager you have initiative and creativity to sustain the organisation.  It also means you have the ability to motivate and empower staff to meet performance criteria defined.  You have the ability to train, recruit and support career development.

Organisations really need to consider career development and put the organisation’s financial capability into good use, by focusing on talent leadership.

I have one last note on this matter. In hierarchical organisations and depending on the culture, a title can be a barrier to effective, trusting and open communication. In a flat organisation titles are irrelevant as the team is kinetic, agile and specialists are also generalists that just get the job done.