An Integralista colleague asked me recently: what’s the difference between an associate and a senior? Between a senior and a director? Between any two rungs on the ladder we’ve built here?
It’s a fair question. And I didn’t want to give a pat answer.
My honest answer is: titles are a trailing indicator of your professional development (so is compensation, for that matter). They reflect what you’ve already demonstrated—not what you’re trying to reach. The title changes generally after you’ve already been stretching to grow into the job at the next level, consistently, observably, over time. Not once or twice or even a handful of times. Consistently, reliably and almost reflexively.
So the real question isn’t “what do I need to do to get the title?” It’s “what does operating at the next level actually look like?”
Here’s how I think about it. There are five and a half things that change as you grow in this business—and that ‘half’ one at the last point on the list may surprise you.
1. Decision-making authority
At the most junior level, most decisions are made for you. You’re executing. The decisions you’re making are pretty tactical—when to send something, how to format it, which of two similar options to choose. That’s not a criticism. That’s the job.
As you grow, decision-making becomes the job. Most of what I do at this point is try to gather enough information and then make good decisions. That’s it. That’s the whole deal. If you’re not yet in a position where your decisions have meaningful consequences for the work or the firm, you’re doing essential and important work for your level, which is not likely accompanied by a senior title.
2. Span of control
With expanded decision-making comes responsibility for how resources get deployed. In a professional services environment, that usually means managing other people—or at least managing the activities of others within a project. This is about money — the old saying ‘time is money’ is, in a sense, literally true. If you’re accountable for how other people spend their time, and their time is being paid for (through their wages etc.) then you are pretty directly accountable for that money.
This isn’t about headcount as a status symbol. It’s about accountability. Can you direct, coordinate, and be responsible for an outcome that requires more than just your own effort? Can you get it done with a nuanced understanding of all the variables, puts and takes, deus ex machinas and exigencies of cashflow to reach that outcome and reach it profitably?
Span of control is further complicated by the human factor. Can you be emotionally present and available to these people under your direction as you produce valuable outcomes for the client and profit for the firm? That’s the $1,000,000 question. Sometimes more!
3. Budget authority
Can you spend money on behalf of the firm? Does the rest of the leadership team trust you to make decisions about our second most finite resource (cash)?*
Cash isn’t just a tool. It’s a proxy for trust. Having budget authority means the organization has concluded that your judgment is sound enough to put real stakes behind it.
Oh, and btw, budgets aren’t given, they’re earned. I know that sounds totally dad-tastic of me, and it is, but it is also true. I remember asking my managers for a budget to do various things early in my career and nearly always getting denied. It wasn’t until I moved a little further along that I came to understand budgets naturally attach to well-defined outcomes and rarely attach to neat ideas (even if they’re really, really neat-o.)
Want a budget? Quantify an outcome — generally quantifiable as increasing revenue, increasing profit or decreasing some kind of risk. Work back from that number. Come up with your approach to achieve that gain or savings. There’s your business plan and, if you’ve done your homework well and presented an inspiring case, a budget will follow.
4. Commercial sensibility
Strategy is about only one thing: value. I know that sounds reductive and maybe a tad gnomish, but stick with me for a second. Strategy is the work of figuring out how to get from a current state to a more valuable one — deselecting bad paths, choosing good ones along the way — so that our clients generate more value and we get to share in some of it. This value is almost always quantified in dollars at some point, so, you know…see above on accountability for resources.
If you don’t understand how a client makes money, you can’t do strategy for them. And if you can’t do strategy, you’re always going to need someone above you to make the important calls. Developing a commercial mindset — understanding both our business and theirs — is what makes expanded responsibility possible.
5. Notoriety in networks that matter
Are you known? Not broadly, not by everyone, but specifically, by people and in communities that are consequential to our business?
This is something I think gets underestimated early in a career, and overestimated later. It’s not about followers or personal brand. It’s about whether the professional community in your domain knows your work and your name — because that affects who we can hire, who we can pitch, and who takes our calls.
I am a total broken record on this point — the best networking is free-working. Join professional groups and make them better by giving your time, ideas, and energy generously. You will be demonstrating your value rather than trying to charm people over a cocktail (tho that can be a fun, albeit less productive, way to network too!)
Don’t go too far, of course. If you give everything away you may inadvertently indicate that you don’t value your own time, ideas, and energy.
5 ½. Your skill as a practitioner
I said skill is last on this list, and I mean it. That’s not because it doesn’t matter—it does, a lot. But here’s the thing: I’m not the CEO of this company because I’m the best strategist, or the best writer, the best business operator, or the best client manager on the team. I have real skills, but that’s not what distinguishes a leader from someone who reports to a leader.
In fact, I’m counting on the people who report to me to be better than I am in many (actually, probably all) of those areas. If you’re sharper than me on the craft—great. That’s exactly right. What I’m looking for in someone who wants to grow is whether they’re also developing in the first four categories. Because great execution without decision-making authority, commercial awareness, or professional presence is a ceiling, not a ladder.
So what’s it mean to lead?
Leadership is the ability to discover and define an opportunity space, summon the resources and people to pursue it, effectively capture the value, and equitably and sustainably share the benefit of winning.
When you look at any job descriptions — and this is the case for the ones we’ve built for each role at Integral — read them as a map of these five things (not as a checklist to satisfy HR.) The descriptions should signal what it looks like to operate at each level. Titles follow from the doing, and as I said earlier, probably less immediately than you might wish since the doing needs to happen a lot and over time.
And if you’re not sure where you stand on any of this, ask your mentor, ask me or ask your manager. That conversation is always worth having.
*The scarcest resource of all, of course, is time. And not because of its financial corollary. But because we’re all here on planet earth just for a brief moment. We can spend that time with family, colleagues, friends and others we care about. We can try to do Good work and get a little better with each try. And if we become profligate time-wasters, well, what a loss!