Please, Don’t Let the Title Change You

Some time ago, I wrote a column asking people not to call me “Attorney.” It was published on the day I took my oath as a lawyer, after a decade-long journey toward a title I had once imagined would change everything.

It did not.

I wrote then that “Attorney” was a testament to work accomplished, but not a definition of who I was. A title could describe an achievement or a role, but it could never contain the entirety of a human being.

I still believe that.

But perhaps there is another side to that conversation about titles. If a title does not define the person, then perhaps we should also be careful not to let the title become more important than the responsibility that comes with it.

I have been thinking about this particularly in the context of volunteer organizations. We seem fascinated by positions. We celebrate who was elected, congratulate who was appointed, announce the new board and photograph the new officers. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this. Titles serve a purpose. They tell us who has been entrusted with a particular responsibility. It streamlines the roles of an organization so its purpose may be better served. What it is not is a declaration of who is the mostest and the bestest.

The problem really begins when we become so preoccupied with the luster of the office that we forget the work.

We celebrate someone for becoming president, but sometimes fail to ask what being president actually requires. We congratulate someone for becoming chairman without asking what the organization now expects that person to carry. Somewhere along the way, the appointment itself is the accomplishment. We deign to remember that the position we’ve just acquired merely gives us the responsibility to carry out its functions.

A position, after all, is not a trophy. It is an assignment.

Perhaps this confusion exists because titles are visible while responsibility is not. A title fits neatly on a nameplate. Responsibility does not. A title can be announced from a podium. The difficult decision made quietly afterward cannot. A title can be printed on a program. The hours spent solving an organization’s problems cannot.

And so we end up celebrating the appearance of leadership more than the substance of it.

This is particularly dangerous in volunteer organizations because people give their time freely. They give their evenings, their weekends, their expertise and their relationships. The real reward should be knowing that something became better because we gave ourselves to it. We focus on what we have brought to add to the luster of the office or organization, not on what luster we can extract from it. The power and influence that come with the office are used to carry out individual interests and to stroke egos, rather than furthering the advocacy. Recognition has often become a substitute for contribution, where an organization can begin rewarding people for being visible rather than being useful.

There is a difference between being involved and being useful.

You can attend every meeting and accomplish very little. You can appear in every photograph and solve very few problems. You can hold several prestigious positions and leave behind very little that matters. Conversely, some of the most consequential work in an organization is often done by people whose names never appear in the program.

They may not have the most impressive titles. But they are carrying the responsibility.

There is another responsibility, however, that belongs not to the person holding the office, but to the people around that person.

We often speak about leadership as though the responsibility to remain grounded belongs entirely to the leader. I don’t think it does. Power changes the way people treat you. Authority creates distance and titles invite deference. And if everyone around a person constantly reinforces that distance, it becomes remarkably easy for the person to lose sight of who they were before the office.

This is why the people around leaders have a responsibility to keep them human.

Not by disrespecting the office, but by remembering the person underneath it. We should be willing to disagree with a leader when we think the organization is drifting. We should not laugh at every joke simply because it came from the person at the head of the table, nor agree with every idea because disagreement has become uncomfortable. We should not applaud their mere presence at a meeting, lest we devolve from volunteering for a cause to mere pandering.

If we constantly remind someone how important they are, we should not be surprised when they eventually forget that the position exists to serve others.

The people around power have power of their own. It is the power to tell the truth, to ask difficult questions and, perhaps most importantly, to remind someone: You are still one of us.

That is not disrespectful. It is one of the most important forms of institutional accountability. It is the highest form of camaraderie to see and speak to the person, rather than to their title.

The best organizations are not those where leaders are worshipped. They are those where authority can coexist with humility; and where the person holding the highest office can still sit down with everyone else after the meeting and remember that, before the election, they were simply another member who believed in the same mission.

Leadership is temporary. Institutions should not be.

Perhaps that is the irony of volunteer leadership. We sometimes seek positions because we want to be remembered, but the people who leave the most lasting marks are often those who were too busy doing the work to worry about being remembered.

They were busy building. They were busy serving. They were busy making themselves unnecessary.

Perhaps this is what I have come to appreciate about titles. They are reminders. When someone calls me “Attorney,” I am reminded of what I worked for, and the duty I am called to serve. When someone is called “President,” “Chairman” or “Director,” perhaps they should be reminded not of what they have achieved, but what they have agreed to carry.

And perhaps those of us around them should help them remember that.

Someday, the title will disappear, and the position will belong to someone else. What remains is what we built while we were there.

If we are fortunate, someone will come along after us and say: They left this place better than they found it.

That, perhaps, is title enough.