{"id":5791,"date":"2026-09-21T08:47:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T12:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/?p=5791"},"modified":"2026-09-21T08:47:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T12:47:32","slug":"the-illusion-of-the-job-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2026\/09\/21\/the-illusion-of-the-job-title\/","title":{"rendered":"The Illusion of the Job Title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most leaders are quietly exhausted by an invisible trap: the belief that a job title dictates everything a person should or can do. When things fall through the cracks on a team, we tend to assume it\u2019s a performance issue, a lack of initiative, or a bad culture fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More often than not, it\u2019s a structural illusion. We have confused the <em>person<\/em> with the <em>position<\/em>, leaving critical work unowned while high performers burn out trying to be everything to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Source \/ Framework<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Psychotherapist Phil Stutz highlights the danger of fusing your core identity with a static snapshot of your external role. When you treat a temporary function as your entire identity, any failure in the process feels like a personal flaw, and any change feels like a threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In organizational life, frameworks like Sociocracy offer a direct solution to this psychological weight: <strong>decouple the person from the function<\/strong>. Traditional job descriptions bundle dozens of disparate activities into a static title like &#8220;Product Manager&#8221;. Role-based work, by contrast, separates work into lightweight, explicit responsibilities that anyone with the right capability can perform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Reframe<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The territorial behavior, boundary wars, and classic <em>&#8220;that&#8217;s not my job&#8221;<\/em> pushback on your team aren&#8217;t signs of poor character. They are <strong>signals of unmapped responsibility<\/strong> and a symptom of &#8220;exclusive permission&#8221; thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reframe is powerful: <strong>Roles create positive responsibility, not exclusive territory<\/strong>. If someone holds the &#8220;Security&#8221; role, it simply means they have explicitly taken responsibility for doing that body of security work. It doesn&#8217;t mean nobody else is allowed to care about, discover, or fix a vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Furthermore, holding a role defines work you <em>do<\/em>, not work you just make others do. True accountability is an active practice of performing the recurring work, not passive oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Leadership Application<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>1. Unpacking the Core Elements<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To fix these structural tensions, start by separating four distinct concepts in your organizational design:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Person:<\/strong> An individual member of the organization bringing human energy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Capability:<\/strong> Something that person actively knows how to do right now.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Role:<\/strong> A coherent body of work and responsibility in the system.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Actor:<\/strong> Who or what (human, AI, external team) currently <em>performs<\/em> that role.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>2. A Concrete Example: The Small Development Team<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Imagine a software team of five people developing and operating a product. Instead of relying solely on titles like &#8220;Architect&#8221; or &#8220;Developer,&#8221; the team identifies the actual work required across three distinct role families:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Delivery Roles:<\/strong> Work that directly creates value through the product, such as <em>Product<\/em>, <em>UX<\/em>, and <em>Development<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Stewardship Roles:<\/strong> Active work that protects an important quality of the system over time, such as <em>Architecture<\/em>, <em>Quality<\/em>, <em>Security<\/em>, and <em>Documentation<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Team-System Roles:<\/strong> Work that helps the team function, learn, and evolve, such as <em>Meeting Facilitator<\/em>, <em>Decision Recorder<\/em>, <em>Onboarding Guide<\/em>, and <em>Team Improvement Steward<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In practice, a single team member can hold multiple roles. For instance, Alice might energize <em>Product<\/em>, <em>UX<\/em>, and <em>Customer Feedback<\/em>, while Diego energizes <em>Development<\/em>, <em>Security<\/em>, and <em>Documentation<\/em>. Diego holding the <em>Security<\/em> role doesn&#8217;t mean the team needs a full-time Security Engineer; it means Diego dedicates a portion of his active focus to performing security work. The roles I picked here as examples are too big. The following example shows how they could and should be a bit smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>3. Roles, Accountabilities, and Tasks: The<\/strong> <strong><em>Decision Recorder<\/em><\/strong> <strong>Breakdown<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To design roles effectively, distinguish between the role&#8217;s purpose and its accountabilities. Let\u2019s examine a specific team-system role, the <strong>Decision Recorder<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Role (The Coherent Body of Work):<\/strong> <em>Decision Recorder<\/em> exists to make important decisions easy to find and understand across the organization.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Accountabilities (Recurring Work &amp; Ongoing Responsibilities):<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Detect significant decisions as they happen.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Capture decisions along with their rationale and context.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Maintain the decision log history.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Surface obsolete or conflicting decisions over time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>4. Understanding Role Granularity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A crucial design question is deciding how broad or narrow a role should be. The guiding principle is: <strong>Split roles as far as useful, not as far as possible<\/strong>. A role should be <em>small enough to delegate, but large enough to own<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>When to keep responsibilities together:<\/strong> Look at the <em>Decision Recorder<\/em> role above. You could theoretically split it into <em>Decision Detector<\/em>, <em>Decision Writer<\/em>, <em>Decision Publisher<\/em>, and <em>Obsolete Decision Detector<\/em>. However, these responsibilities are tightly connected. Atomizing them into microscopic roles creates handoffs, administrative fragmentation, and more coordination effort than clarity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>When to split a role:<\/strong> Decompose a broad role when different accountabilities require distinct decision authorities, different capabilities, or operate at different cadences. As a product grows, a monolithic <em>Product<\/em> role might naturally be split into <em>Customer Discovery<\/em>, <em>Product Prioritization<\/em>, <em>Product Outcomes<\/em>, and <em>Product Communication<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Practical Takeaway<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Holding a role means doing the work<\/strong>. A role defines the work you do, not the work you make others do. Stop managing by static job titles and start organizing around explicit, living responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Coaching Prompt<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What critical work is currently getting done through individual heroic effort rather than an explicit role?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Where on your team is someone &#8220;accountable&#8221; for a result, but only doing passive oversight instead of actively performing the work?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you decoupled your team&#8217;s job titles from their daily focus, what 2\u20133 roles are they actually energizing right now?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Are you treating any of your current responsibilities as &#8220;exclusive territory&#8221; rather than shared domains?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most leaders are quietly exhausted by an invisible trap: the belief that a job title dictates everything a person should or can do. When things fall through the cracks on a team, we tend to assume it\u2019s a performance issue, a lack of initiative, or a bad culture fit. More often than not, it\u2019s a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNjQG-1vp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2864,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2019\/04\/27\/ratings-and-reviews\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":0},"title":"Ratings and Reviews","author":"Alexis","date":"April 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Ratings and reviews contribute significantly to the success of a book \u2014 not a rocket science fact. When we go to platforms like Goodreads, we choose our next book based on the category, the title, the cover, the abstract, AND the ratings and reviews! It seems that ratings and reviews\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/04\/rating-153609_960_720.png?fit=960%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/04\/rating-153609_960_720.png?fit=960%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/04\/rating-153609_960_720.png?fit=960%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/04\/rating-153609_960_720.png?fit=960%2C480&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2396,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2017\/07\/25\/team-identity\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":1},"title":"Team Identity","author":"Alexis","date":"July 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The sense of belonging is an important experience to have. Belonging means that we are accepted as part of, as a member of the group, the team, the company. We want to be part of a team because what defines the team identity is appealing to us. The team is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/425H.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/425H.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/425H.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/425H.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/425H.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2356,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2016\/12\/09\/how-to-measure-our-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":2},"title":"How to measure our life?","author":"Alexis","date":"December 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A colleague recommended me to look at the work of Clayton Christensen. This is an article to encourage you to do the same. We are living in a nested system. In the world, there are nations, and in nations, there are corporations. In corporations, there are business unit, in which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/12\/rfufqjekzfy-olu-eletu-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C806&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/12\/rfufqjekzfy-olu-eletu-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C806&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/12\/rfufqjekzfy-olu-eletu-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C806&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/12\/rfufqjekzfy-olu-eletu-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C806&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/12\/rfufqjekzfy-olu-eletu-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C806&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3298,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2020\/03\/28\/chief-of-staff-in-the-tech-industry\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":3},"title":"Chief of Staff in the Tech Industry","author":"Alexis","date":"March 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In this article, I would like to provide information and pointers to information on the Chief of Staff's role in the tech industry. As a member of the Engineering Leadership Team at Red Hat, I have been in that kind of role for almost three years for the SVP of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/Screenshot-from-2020-09-19-10-25-15.png?fit=691%2C327&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/Screenshot-from-2020-09-19-10-25-15.png?fit=691%2C327&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/Screenshot-from-2020-09-19-10-25-15.png?fit=691%2C327&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2904,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2019\/06\/19\/the-audiobook-is-available\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":4},"title":"The Audiobook is available!","author":"Alexis","date":"June 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In addition to electronic, paperback, hardcover, and team edition, Changing Your Team From The Inside is now available as an audiobook! Michael Ried did an excellent job in narrating the book. I was even caught listening to him forgetting that I was on a review mission :) The book is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/Screenshot-from-2019-06-19-21-49-48.png?fit=891%2C250&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/Screenshot-from-2019-06-19-21-49-48.png?fit=891%2C250&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/Screenshot-from-2019-06-19-21-49-48.png?fit=891%2C250&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/Screenshot-from-2019-06-19-21-49-48.png?fit=891%2C250&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3025,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2019\/11\/02\/keynote-agiletour-bordeaux\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":5},"title":"Keynote AgileTour Bordeaux","author":"Alexis","date":"November 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"On October 30, 2019, I add the pleasure to deliver the keynote for AgileTour Bordeaux. I delivered the keynote titled: What is your real power? in french. The recording and the slides are already available. #atbdx C'est @alexismonville qui relance l'apr\u00e8s-midi par une keynote pic.twitter.com\/k9JsQESiMX\u2014 Chris DENIAUD (@ChrisDENIAUD) October 30,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/09\/nathan-dumlao-qmxzyEJ1PSQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=1812%2C2560&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5793,"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5791\/revisions\/5793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}