Our generation has more options at our disposal than any other in the history of humankind…as far as it seems, at least.
We can do whatever we want. We are suffocating in choices. Options. Possibilities. What if’s. Every choice we make means we’re not choosing many other options.
Whether it’s choosing the right place to live, the right partner to share our life with, the right yoga style that is perfect for our bodies’ shapes or what to watch on satellite TV out of billions available shows…every decision feels like an anxiety attack and the most difficult challenge nowadays seems to be how the heck to focus on what really matters for us as individuals.
It seems our only issue is to find some way to make the right choice out of multiple possibilities without driving ourselves crazy. And it seems that (in the western world at least) this is valid for the career path selection process too.
Are we fully free human beings just struggling to cherry pick the most resonating career for ourselves to thrive? Are we sure?
Let’s have a closer look.
What are the main drivers that are impacting people choices around career?
The questions here are the following: are we freely expressing our inner purpose, talent and attitude when it comes to choose our career? Or is society conditioning us in shaping it with the aim to achieve a pre-determined idea of success?
Researches clearly state that society is definitely conditioning us. YES, indeed. In particular depending on:
- The cultural context & cultural values, that have an important impact on individuals’ career choice. Collectivistic-driven people may perceive voluntary work as meaningful because it benefits the interests of their community. They also prefer to choose a career that provides them with training opportunities and working conditions than freedom or challenge of work. In contrast, individualistic-driven people focus on self-interests and they want to accomplish their own goals. They perceive freedom and challenge of work as more important than training opportunities or working conditions.
- The need to make money without facing risk, that condition many of us to think we must have a profitable yet “secure” job. Intellectually we all know that risk-taking entrepreneurship exist and can be pursued, but we don’t recognize this emotionally and viscerally. “Civilization has certainly proved valuable in some ways, but the cost has been the constant narrowing of our appetite for risk. One of its effects has been this addiction-to-paychecks syndrome“, that was actually achieved through conditioning. We can still understand risk and entrepreneurship in the abstract but not at gut-level, and we seek the security of a paycheck even when that security is rapidly turning into a complete illusion.
- Gender Stereotypes, that distort our views of both ourselves and others. Stereotypes massively effect individuals’ confidence levels playing on minds so strongly that it becomes tough to convince people of their talent in fields where they believe their gender is weak. This is valid both for men and for women, because all individuals are less confident in fields that are more stereotypically outside of their gender’s domain. However that may be especially troubling for women within professional spaces, since buying into those stereotypes could be creating a bleak self-image that is setting them back professionally. No need to say: confidence gaps have huge impacts in the workplace, particularly in professions long dominated by men.
How has social conditioning shaped the way we define professional success?
Following on from the above three main drivers that are impacting people choices around career, let’s have a look at what does it mean to have a “socially acceptable” successful career nowadays.
A successful career is:
- Ego-system based, mainly driven by individualistic values like freedom, challenge of work, self-interests and individualistic goals.
- Profitable yet comfy, pursued by paycheck addicted people happily living with bells ringing for waking up and meal-times and knowing that everything happens like clockwork.
- Top management position, to be achieved moving up the ladder in hierarchical organizations mainly functioning in a male-determined fashion, being long dominated by men.
First and foremost there is absolutely nothing wrong with the suit & tie ambition, however the question is: how is it coming that, among all the options and possibilities we do have (see the beginning of this post), everyone is ending up longing to become a disciplined, risk-averse, domesticated and comfort-loving individual in suit & tie?
Social conditioning is the answer, of course.
Let’s deep dive a bit if the current socially conditioned idea of success is fostering wellbeing (from individuals’ perspective) and/or profitability (from business perspective).
Is the current definition of success still sustainable (and desirable)?
Our society as a whole is experiencing since many decades that the definition of success I summarized above is actually no more sustainable from both individuals’ perspective (in terms of wellbeing) and from business perspective (in terms of profitability).
In fact both individuals’ and businesses’ needs are massively evolving and millennials, who already account for nearly 50% of the workforce in the US, started the process of reshaping expectations: they do not stay where they do not thrive, paychecks/money have very low/time-limited impact on the choices they make. What does “success” mean for them?
- pursuing a meaningful career that is resonating with their inner purpose
- working with someone acting as role model
- continuously learning new things on the job
Key themes are the following: meaning & purpose, strong rapport, love of learning. These are the new “soul-sustainable” drivers for people to make career choices. Direct implication is the need for individuals and businesses to respectively acknowledge their inner purpose as very first priority and to strongly embed these values within organizations’ culture.
In few words the new definition of success, at individual and business level, is a soul-sustainable one.
What does it mean for both organizations & individuals to head towards sustainability in the workplace?
Sustainable corporate practices link closely and positively to business performance. And as an obvious consequence investors are focusing their attention on sustainability scores, like ESG index (Environmental, Social and Governance).
Is this attitude finally enabling the shift towards soul-sustainability in the professional space and in the workplace? It’s not a cure-all, but it’s the first step in the right direction for sure.
In particular this trend is helpful because it aims to be a holistic approach – with respect to disruptive change, financial strength, environmental and social externalities and governance, also referred to as ESG – for investors to identify the most relevant opportunities: value is no more lying in the financial bottom-line only because environmental and social dimensions are considered to be relevant as well, that is a very good news.
However the above mentioned sustainable dimensions tend to be mainly related to externalities.
What we are talking about here is to bring the attention back into the individual span of control:
- for people to focus on their inner purpose when choosing their career path in the first place
- for companies to boldly define and convey their purpose so that enabling people to choose and anchor in it, in case it resonates with their own.
Who can lead the shift towards professional sustainability?
A truly transformational approach can make the professional sustainability happen in practice. And for this transformational approach to be implemented a new generation of transformational leaders are needed.
Becoming a transformational leader is key for professional sustainability to be embedded:
- at the individual level, because discovering the transformational leader who is living within each one of us brings inspiration enough to look ahead with a focus on our greater good and to be ultimately able to find our unique professional purpose,
- at the organizational level, because transformational leaders are able to guide the organization from within in defining or redefining its purpose and core values in a way that creates a culture focused on the new definition of success”.
A transformational leader is: visionary, team-centric, engaging, inspiring, inclusive, emotionally intelligent, collaborative, charismatic, empathetic, motivating. On a personal level, they possess strong ethical values. They strive to put their teams before themselves without ever thinking about their own power or how their actions will benefit them personally moving forward.
This very specific transformational leadership style is also commonly known as “Servant Leadership”. Servant leadership has come a long way since Robert Greenleaf first popularized the term in the 1970s, and while it’s probably fair to say it is still unfortunately not the predominant view of how leaders should be, it is growing in popularity due to the strong transformative power it unlocks.
And interestingly enough, as from a very recent research: “whereas societal stereotypes still portray men as more natural leaders, women may be more effective servant leaders. In particular, for women who have struggled with gendered expectations of leaders, servant leadership may be an ideal style to invert and overcome those stereotypes”.
Servant leadership style is now the Queen. And it is Female.
Looking at the shift towards sustainability in defining professional success and at the consequent rise of servant leadership for this to happen, it becomes critical for both individuals and organizations to boost this highly transformative leadership style as a powerful asset.
Given that the servant leadership style is mastered by women (as from all the above), it comes natural to embed strong female-determined values & behaviors in order to achieve professional success at the individual level, and relevant business performance at the organization level.
Know more here about transformative servant leadership style or get in touch if you want to start fostering the servant leadership style that lies within yourself.
