It’s pretty confronting to be challenged about one’s professional pride, so I’ll tread carefully :). I guess it’s because we would all want to be seen – by ourselves and others – as being prideful about something as important as our profession. Especially at the level of seniority of this readership.
In my mind, there are two levels of pride: Practical Professional Pride and Evolved Professional Pride.
Practical professional pride includes:
- Working hard
- Having high standards
- Taking care of one’s health
- Minding one’s appearance
- Showing up on time
But it’s in the Evolved professional pride where it gets interesting, and potentially confronting.
Does your Evolved professional pride:
- Enable you to never lead a business that you don’t believe in?
- Enable you to never take an ethically wrong side of an argument?
- Enable you to never swallow a point of view that needs to be expressed?
- Enable you to never stop seeking out your highest possible potential?
- Enable you to never work for someone (i.e. a Board Chair) who is not worthy of your effort?
Morals are easy to hold until they get tested: self-righteousness is for the unexposed. The Evolved professional pride asks questions of you that are uncomfortable because they are asking you to decide where your ambitions are pegged and where your boundaries are drawn. Both are exacting conversations to have with oneself.
But they are also important ‘bottom-line’ questions that often lead to bold choices being made. The kinds of choices that, one day many years down the line, you look back on with personal pride and satisfaction – the kind of choices that really matter.
Imagine the collective impact of millions of people in the workforce enforcing their professional pride? The knock-on effect would be remarkable.
(PS. Watch the post-rationalisation that this missive might bring up. That’s your pride being compromised. It’s acceptable to make the odd deal with the devil as life is neither perfect nor predictable, and compromises are sometimes called for. But do yourself the service of being clear and honest with yourself so that you aren’t buying into your own untruth).