Developing Other People’s Professional Identity

Nobody sees themselves as a “human resource”.  It’s doubtful if they ever did… but there is no doubt whatever that today’s professionals are renegotiating the entire relationship between life and work. They know they are more than their job.

The purpose of this article is threefold: 

1. To show how today’s professionals want to develop, and why professional identity is important
2. To identify some of common pitfalls that people and organisations fall into, when developing talent or trying to improve talent retention
3. To share some tips on how a manager or mentor can develop rising stars in their teams

The Engagement Gulf

The pandemic has prompted many professionals to rethink their relationship with work. If Work and Life were a couple, they are now in couple’s counselling… perhaps even in mediation or divorce!  While this was already a trend before the pandemic, the questioning and renegotiation between Life and Work is now squarely mainstream.  You no longer have to hide your competing commitments.

In parallel, it seems we have a gulf opening up between the Employer- and Employee- view of engagement. Professional employees believe that engagement has to be earned, by the actions of the organisation towards them (care for welfare, flexibility towards family commitment, developing them in the ways that they want to develop, etc).  On the other hand, employers often view engagement as something to which they are entitled: i.e. we pay you to focus to work!  So, we want you back in the office, minimising distractions and focusing on the goals for which you are employed.

For now, let’s not get caught up in this debate—let’s just acknowledge that it exists. It’s part of the context in which professional identity is important.

Rebellion’s

Traditional career-development has focused on building competencies: both “hard” and “soft”. Organisations were divided into roles (with job-titles), competencies were mapped onto roles and people were mapped by competencies, which (in theory) dictated your promotion prospects. In reality of course, you could always short-circuit this by internal networking and relationship-building: hence the importance of after-hours networking (from which parents and remote workers were often de-facto excluded).  Development—if it existed at all—was either a generic “sheep-dip for all” or was sometimes customised for roles or (very occasionally) for individuals. 

Today’s professionals do not want to be pieces on the organisational chessboard: they want to be developed in their own right.

This is what they are looking for when scanning job opportunities and when doing interviews.  They want organisations that will develop them, not just move them around the corporate chessboard, equipping them for the next chore of heavy lifting. Other characteristics: 

• They know that job-titles are fluid and often meaningless
• They mistrust all forms of employee branding: they are looking for what day-to-day life is like behind the fa?ade
• Most have their own developmental projects running in parallel: such as side hustles, study,  yoga teacher training, community activism, parenting, football training, travel… which are priorities for them, not just spare-time leisure pursuits
• There is an ambiguous relationship with teams. On the one hand, there is a call for more connection, get-togethers, social events etc. On the other hand, when this is provided, the uptake is often quite low.
• They have choice (or many of them do).  They know they can earn 20-40% more by job-hopping
• Many are questioning their future: not just in terms of employer, but also in terms of purpose / lifestyle / meaning

Why Professional Identity is Important

Identity is about who you are – not what you do.  For many decades, we’ve been understanding who we are by reference to what we did.  You got your identity from your role / qualifications / place in the organigram. But now, many of the external markers that defined our identity are being swept away in a changed economy: whether this is the reserved parking space at the office, the commuting lifestyle, signature clients or position in the organisation. Like a high autumn tide coming in across the sand on which we’ve been building our relationship with ourselves.

Your identity is the red line that runs through anything that you ever do: it’s the fingerprint you leave wherever you go. It’s much deeper than a superficial personal brand: it’s about what gives meaning to your work. It’s how you see yourself in your work: irrespective of how many followers you have on social media. Of course, the ideal professional identify is one that is seen, known and valued by others, too… which in turn bestows some kind of “career belonging”.

Professional identity is important to today’s professionals because:

1. It gives meaning to their work by linking both their strengths and their values
2. It’s an anchor in times of change, transition or uncertainly. You never lose a professional identity – even if you are between roles or companies. Indeed, this is when it’s most valuable.
3. It’s a source of energy and confidence. Within a matter of days, I’ve often noticed how as soon as people clarify their identity, they are able to do things that they could not do even the week before.
4. Resilience: Even if you get turned down for a promotion or an opportunity, you know who you are. You bounce back swiftly from setbacks, because these don’t define your identity.
5. You are better able to present yourself and to communicate what you do, in part due to the energy and confidence above, but often due to a renewed sense of meaning and purpose.

But what are the benefits to an organisation? Why should a company bother with developing individual professional identity? Is this not just a distraction from talent development? Or worse still, are we just educating valued people to leave the company and pursue their next career elsewhere? 

From our experience at Self-Worth Academy, here are some of the ways that professional identity development brings tangible benefit to an organisation:

1. It immediately signals to a team-member that they are being developed in their own right – rather than just being put though a corporate sheep-dip for the company’s benefit. It shows that the organisation is genuinely interested in them, as persons, whatever the outcome… and is willing to invest accordingly. 
2. This is a powerful magnet for attracting the right talent. If you attract people via the salary, you can lose them the moment someone offers them 10pc more.  It you attract people who want to develop their professional identity, you are forging a deeper psychological contract with them, right from the start.
3. When your team-members know who they are, they are more productive, confident and resilient, particularly during times of change and uncertainty.  They are not so needy for reassurance and validation. They can tolerate ambiguity and complexity.
4. They are better at self-presentation – both inside the organisation and with customers. As long as their identity is rooted in self-worth, they can represent their work in terms of how this is valuable, rather than chasing ratings / approval / adjectives about how valuable they are.
5. A clearer identity brings a greater sense of career-belonging, even in a virtual world. When you feel seen, known and valued for who you are; you are no longer just trying to fit in, or restlessly scanning the horizon for something else to do.
6. As a result, key talent is more likely to stay for longer. At a certain moment, it is right and proper than talented people will want to move on. For that reason, retention is not and can not be the main goal of identity development. Nevertheless, there is tangible evidence that when people are happy with who they are in a company, when they see that the company is investing in them, why would they incur all the costs and risks (and workload) of changing? 
7. Career-reviews are less painful! One of the reasons these events are so dreaded (by both sides) is that they are often an exchange of adjectives about the year gone by: full of subjective assessment about “how you are performing” against an impersonal list of goals or targets… made sometimes by managers with little involvement in your projects. Professional identity development gives everyone something more engaging to discuss and review.

Some Classic Pitfalls

The full list of pitfalls is rather lengthy: but here are some of the common rabbit-holes down which many well-intentioned attempts can go:

• Slipping back into defining self in terms of roles or achievements. Problem: contingent identity, which is not really a professional identity at all, just an activity. Example: “I am a coach / mentor / project-manager / manager”.  These are things we do, not things we are. Even the glory of achievements fades.
• Rushing the process. Latching onto the first word or phrase that makes one feel good and eases the discomfort of uncertainty. Then getting busy with LinkedIn, website, self-presentation without testing this out and “marinading” the core idea. Problem: all the above work usually needs to be done again, often costing people some personal credibility in the process.
• Slipping into a self-centred narrative and/or incessant introspection, often driven by the needs of self-esteem. The usual product is yet another “Me Story”, with no relevance to the needs of the marketplace, or any context in which individual talent might be useful.  
• Copying words and phrases used by other people. Problem: identity stories that are boring or clichéd.  (Have you noticed how many CVs and LinkedIn profiles all sound the same?)
• Playing to yesterday’s world. For an identity to have value and impact, it needs to be relevant to the future, not just the past. 
• Equation of professional identity and specific competencies e.g. “I am a project manager” or “I am a coach”.  Again, these are things we do, not who we are.  What often happens such professionals is that they have no identity at all and therefore are lost in crowded markets.
• Trying to live up to someone else’s expectations, such as the boss, parents or even key clients. Problem: many of these people want you to keep doing what you’re doing!  (Professional identity development often involves firing someone from the committee living in one’s head!)

There are many more.  One of the reasons that our Professional Identity facilitator course exists is to train manager and mentors (and career counsellors of course) to effectively develop professional identity with people in their teams. (co-facilitated with Sarabeth Berk, Ph.D.)

The significance of self-worth

Most people’s relationship with self is based on self-esteem, not self-worth. This is how most of us have been educated. Self-esteem has conditions: it’s how we feel we are doing at the game of life. Self-worth on the other hand comes from within, it’s not based on behaviour or performance.  (Fully explained in the book “The Self-Worth Safari”)

The problem is that most people get their self-esteem from their professional identity – rather than building their professional identity on a foundation of self-worth. 

This creates all kinds of knock-on problems, including…to

1. Anxiety about not being good enough
2. Needing constant praise and validation
3. Desperate for likes / comments / shares in order to feel they have an identity
4. Being on a constant treadmill of “needing to develop”, chasing the next qualification as the solution to the identity crisis
5. Gutted by setbacks, which are more than disappointments when they threaten one’s core identity
6. Stress as a result of all of the above, often leading to burnout

Add to all this, the problem with change and transition. During change, the reference points that defined our self-esteem have often disappeared. Examples could be the company car, the place at the office, the big house, the job title, the golf-club, the family name, the way we dress etc). In particular, the pandemic and its aftereffects have robbed many people of their reference points.

Self-worth is intrinsic and unconditional, so it’s one of the few things that nobody can take from you. Whether you have been passed over for promotion or just got a disappointing review, you can still have self-worth. You can be an unconditional friend to yourself in all conditions. 

Tips when developing professional identity with others

So, if you are a manager / mentor, how do you develop professional identity with others?  Here are some tips:

• Sharing the distinction between Who they are / What they do is a useful starting point for reflection and discussion
• Exploring their strengths is a great starting point: perhaps expanding their strengths into the insights they bring into any situation
• Interrupting their routine narrative or career-story is a key feature of this type of work! You will swiftly notice how many stories exist to satisfy the craving for validation!
• When you see the hunger for self-validation (driven by self-esteem), this is usually a prompt to introduce self-worth. If not, they will just create another “Me Story”
• Ask them to explore “How am I valuable?  rather than “How valuable am I?” This often yields some very interesting information to work with
• When setbacks happen, notice how they respond. Do they take the learning and move on, or do they get very depressed?  Again, this may be indicative of self-worth issues.
• Most people want to improve their self-presentation.  This is a very easy gateway to professional identity development, also to deeper aspects such as self-worth. How are they coming across? What do they want to be known for? How would they like to be valued?

Resources

• Our Professional Identity facilitator course exists is to train manager and mentors (and career counsellors of course) to effectively develop professional identity with people in their teams.
• You can download the first chapter of the book “The Self-Worth Safari” here: how to clarify and deepen self-worth, particularly when going through transition. 
• Webinars on self-worth and professional identity: here
• Book a call with John: here to discuss own development of work with teams

? John Niland, September 2022. For enquiries about John as coach or speaker, on topics of self-worth and professional identity, see www.selfworthacademy.com or email [email protected]