{"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_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_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":5621,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2026\/01\/29\/why-the-best-leaders-are-looking-inward-lessons-from-f1-and-panera\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":0},"title":"Why the best leaders are looking inward (Lessons from F1 and Panera)","author":"Alexis","date":"January 29, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In business, we are taught to manage systems, P&Ls, and teams. But as Peter Drucker famously noted, the most difficult person you will ever have to manage is yourself. I recently attended a panel at the Peter Drucker Forum titled \"The New Sciences of Managing Yourself.\" The speakers, ranging from\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\/2026\/01\/Mika_Hakkinen_1991_USA.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/Mika_Hakkinen_1991_USA.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/Mika_Hakkinen_1991_USA.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/Mika_Hakkinen_1991_USA.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/Mika_Hakkinen_1991_USA.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"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":5701,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2026\/05\/15\/why-ai-doing-90-of-your-coaching-is-the-best-thing-to-happen-to-leadership\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":2},"title":"Why AI Doing 90% of Your Coaching is the Best Thing to Happen to Leadership","author":"Alexis","date":"May 15, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Anxiety is creeping into leadership circles. A late-2025 study by The Conference Board suggests that AI can now handle up to 90% of routine career coaching tasks. I\u2019ll be honest: the knee-jerk fear of obsolescence was exactly my response recently. A client told me she was looking into AI to\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\/2026\/05\/2026-03-24-Alexis-et-Isabel-MONVILLE-Pearlside-2-.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\/2026\/05\/2026-03-24-Alexis-et-Isabel-MONVILLE-Pearlside-2-.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/2026-03-24-Alexis-et-Isabel-MONVILLE-Pearlside-2-.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\/2026\/05\/2026-03-24-Alexis-et-Isabel-MONVILLE-Pearlside-2-.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/2026-03-24-Alexis-et-Isabel-MONVILLE-Pearlside-2-.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4426,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2023\/08\/23\/from-zero-to-1000-insights-from-anne-caron\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":3},"title":"From Zero to 1,000: Building a Scalable Organization with Anne Caron","author":"Alexis","date":"August 23, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Startups move fast, until they don\u2019t. Many teams discover too late that the real constraint isn\u2019t product or funding. It\u2019s the organization itself. In this episode, I spoke with Anne Caron, People Strategy consultant and former Google HR leader, about what it takes to build a company that can scale,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Le Podcast&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Le Podcast","link":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/category\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/Le-Podcast-Season4-Anne-Caron.png?fit=400%2C400&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5802,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2026\/11\/03\/the-hidden-cost-of-silencing-the-room\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":4},"title":"The Hidden Cost of Silencing the Room","author":"Alexis","date":"November 3, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In most organizations, friction is treated as a bug. When someone constantly pushes back, pokes holes in a new initiative, or refuses to get on board, the natural leadership instinct is to neutralize them. We manage them, sideline them, or politely silence them in the name of \"alignment.\" We crave\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\/2026\/11\/getty-images-cZsAWK2IhOM-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/getty-images-cZsAWK2IhOM-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/getty-images-cZsAWK2IhOM-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/getty-images-cZsAWK2IhOM-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/getty-images-cZsAWK2IhOM-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5386,"url":"https:\/\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/2025\/02\/21\/the-leadership-power-of-recognition-are-you-using-it-effectively\/","url_meta":{"origin":5791,"position":5},"title":"The Leadership Power of Recognition: Are You Using It Effectively?","author":"Alexis","date":"February 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This month, I want to explore a fundamental yet often overlooked aspect of leadership:\u00a0recognition and its impact on motivation and team dynamics. Inspired by Eric Berne\u2019s\u00a0Transactional Analysis, the concept of\u00a0recognition strokes\u00a0helps us understand how the way we acknowledge or critique others influences engagement, trust, and leadership development. The Four Types\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\/2025\/07\/katelyn-perry-JgOK0GG0zNo-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C960&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/07\/katelyn-perry-JgOK0GG0zNo-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C960&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog-alexis.monville.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/07\/katelyn-perry-JgOK0GG0zNo-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C960&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"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}]}}