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The Nature of Leadership and Career

read time 6 -7 minutes

Welcome to the third issue of The Nature of Leadership and Career.

This is a weekly newsletter where I provide 1 illustration and ~3 - 5 ideas to help you connect to your career, leadership, or work journey in a way that is inspired by one or more of psychology, neuroscience, the natural environment, and biomimicry.

Today at a glance

• Illustration of the week

  Career Superpower - recognizing patterns.

• The Nature of Career

  3 career factors that most generalists ignore are discussed through 3 questions:

  • Do specialists get paid more?

  • Which areas and roles do generalists thrive in?

  • How can generalists overcome feelings of being an impostor?

Illustration of the Week

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The Nature of Career

3 career X-factors that most generalists ignore

This week's newsletter is dedicated to subscriber Fatimah.

It’s a bit different from the format for previous newsletters.

Recently, I posted on LinkedIn (see last section) and it sparked questions about the role of generalists.

Let's explore this topic further.

1. Do specialists earn higher salaries?

Many articles suggest that specialists earn more.

⚠ Be cautious with these claims!

These are the top 3 results from a Google search on "career generalization vs specialization."

These articles, amongst others I read, tend to be biased, anecdotal, and lack substantial data.

They fail to consider the diversity of roles, industries, and geographical locations.

Instead, let's apply our own logic:

• The disparity in pay between generalists and specialists is largely influenced by shifts in the market and the demand for specific roles.

• Currently, specialized skills like software development and AI expertise are in high demand and command high salaries.

• Post-pandemic, however, there is also a growing demand for generalist roles, such as nurses and customer service representatives, which can offer higher salaries within their respective sectors.

🔑The key takeaway here is that market dynamics dictate role supply and demand, which ultimately affects salaries. You have no control over this.

✅What you do have control and influence over is how you deepen your skills as a generalist and EQUALLY as important is how you position / market / sell yourself.

Here's what I know to be true based on my personal experience as a generalist in consulting and HR in 3 different countries, and multiple industries:

• if you do what you love;

• if you excel at what you; and

• you know how to effectively position yourself

…. the salary and opportunities will come as a generalist or a specialist.  

These steps can feel super cringey for most of us. It was for me.

Embrace the cringe and get started.

Resources:

• Dan Pink's book "To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others”

• Follow Belen Wagaw, who has a knack for making personal branding feel less uncomfortable.

2. Which areas and roles do generalists thrive in?

“Areas”

Nearly all departments require generalist roles, including finance, HR, marketing, tech, and operations.

Rather than area, the key consideration is whether the company values and requires generalists.

This depends on factors such as industry, size, and stage of the company.

As a rough rule of thumb:

• Startups and small businesses with 0-300 employees rely heavily on generalists. With limited resources, they need versatile team members who can wear multiple hats.

• As companies scale to 300-2000 employees, there is a greater need for specialists to address specific problems in different functional areas, refine or redesign existing processes established by generalists, and develop new products and services that require specialized knowledge. That doesn’t mean there isn’t demand. It might just be less.

• Companies with 2000+ employees benefit from a mix of specialists for focused design, and execution, and generalists who can connect ideas and manage across different areas. Generalists also provide an effective means of managing headcount in larger organizations.

Roles

To thrive as a generalist, two factors come into play:

1. Not all generalist roles are the same. Find the type of generalist work you enjoy. (More on how to do this as a generalist OR specialist next week).

   For instance, both being a Program Manager in a technology team and a technology generalist who works across various areas (apps, security, service management) can be considered generalist roles. Thriving depends on your preference.

2. Position yourself effectively by showcasing your value. Reflect on the type of generalist work you want to pursue and seek companies that appreciate the contributions of generalists. Remember, this can be influenced by the organization's growth stage.

Examples of roles for generalists:

• Consultants - especially those looking at horizontal capabilities e.g. design thinking, systems thinking

• Project or Program Managers

• Functional generalists

3. How can generalists overcome feelings of being an impostor?

Understand the core skillset and capabilities of being a generalist.

These include but are not limited to:

• ·Asking informed questions

• Pattern recognition across domains

•  Advanced relationship management

• Balancing depth and breadth of information

• Combining ideas without losing integrity or depth.

Go deep on these.

Going deep on skills and capabilities as a generalist helps address issues of being “a jack of all trades master of none.”

Here’s an example from the recent post that sparked this issue:

I played around with the format of this week’s newsletter. Send feedback on how you found this in the last few newsletters.

⏰Next week we will take a more balanced view of being a generalist vs a specialist – how this occurs in nature, how this occurs in the brain, and how to practically go about the design aspects of your career as a generalist, specialist, generalist - specialist or specialist - generalist.

3 ways to continue the conversation

• Send feedback on a) this issue b) questions or topics you want to know more about.

• Reach out to collaborate on an illustration or anything to do with psychology, leadership, career, or social biomimicry.

• Contact me if you would like to explore leadership or career coaching together.

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