When Titles Matter…and When They Don’t

I recently asked my employer to change my title. That may seem like a strange place to begin an argument about why titles shouldn't matter too much.

My current title is Operations Assistant. While I am still willing to do plenty of operations work, some of the most significant work I've contributed over the past year has moved into a different arena: designing agentic systems, thinking through architecture and governance, building AI-enabled organizational systems, and helping our organization think differently about how people and AI can work together.

So I decided to ask if my title could reflect that work more accurately. I also transparently explained that I wanted the title to make more sense outside my current organization. At this stage in my career, I am building a professional path that extends beyond one employer. Ideally, potential collaborators, clients, and future employers will eventually be able to look at my experience and understand what I actually do.

Right now, my accumulated titles, roles, and expertise can feel a little all over the place. A title that accurately describes the work I've been doing would help make that story more coherent. And I think that transparency matters, because there is a fine line here.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting a title that communicates your professional direction. But there is a significant difference between asking for a title because it accurately describes the responsibility you are carrying and asking for one because you need the title to make you feel more important.

This understanding has made me think differently about titles in general.

A Title Is Supposed to Describe Something

At its best, a title is functional. It tells us something about a person's role, responsibility, authority, or area of expertise. Inside an organization, titles help people understand who owns what, who makes certain decisions, and where accountability sits.

Outside an organization, titles serve another purpose. Most people don't have access to the full story of our work. They don't know every project we've contributed to, every problem we've solved, or every skill we've developed. A title gives them a shorthand. In that sense, titles are useful. They become a map. The problem begins when we confuse the map with the territory.

A title can describe what we do. It cannot determine who we are. A person with a prestigious title is not inherently more valuable than a person without one. A person with authority is not inherently more worthy. And someone who has not yet received the title they want is not necessarily less capable of becoming the person who can carry that responsibility.

Titles should matter organizationally, but not psychologically.

Organizationally, they should correspond to real responsibility, clarify authority, communicate scope, and make organizations easier to navigate. Psychologically, they should not determine our sense of personal worth.

If I want a title because it accurately communicates the work I am already doing, that can be healthy. If I want it because being called something impressive will finally prove that I am important, something has gone wrong. I learned this distinction the hard way at Tesla.

At the time, I was working in data annotation and was desperate to be promoted into a project management role—a prestigious position several levels ahead of where I was. I had tremendous confidence in my capabilities, and I managed to land the promotion.

But once I had the title, I quickly realized how far ahead of my actual experience I was. I was wildly in over my head. The learning curve was steep, and as I struggled, the reputation I had built around my perceived capabilities began to waver.

I'm grateful for that promotion, and I learned an enormous amount from the experience. But looking back, would I say I was fully ready for it?

No.

Even now, I sometimes think about the coworkers who knew me then, the people who watched me struggle, and wonder what they think when they see me stepping into an AI architecture role today. I can't prove it, but part of me worries that they might still question my actual ability, despite how much I have grown and learned since then.

It was a deeply humbling experience. And it taught me something I still carry with me: receiving a title doesn't mean you've finished becoming the person capable of carrying it.

A promotion can and often should place someone into a role where they have more to learn. But that makes it even more important to ask whether you are ready to take responsibility for the people, decisions, and outcomes that come with it. Leadership is not fundamentally about being elevated above other people. It is about becoming responsible for them.

The Higher You Rise, the More You Serve

This is where servant leadership offers a helpful correction to our natural understanding of hierarchy. We tend to visualize organizational hierarchy as a pyramid: the people at the top have more authority, and the people below them have less.

The person with greater authority is not simply elevated above everyone else. They are placed in a position to carry greater responsibility for the people and mission entrusted to them, and thus, the pyramid is inverted, with the CEO at the bottom and the weight and responsibility of their employees above them.

The title may move upward. The posture should move downward.

That is the paradox of good leadership: the more authority you receive, the more people you are responsible for serving well. A title should increase our sense of responsibility, not our sense of superiority.

This doesn't mean hierarchy itself is the problem. Healthy organizations need hierarchy. Someone has to make decisions, take responsibility, own a function, and be accountable when things go wrong. Different roles carry different responsibilities, and titles should be distributed intentionally to reflect those realities: What is this person actually responsible for? What authority do they need? What work are they already doing? What direction are they developing toward? What will this title communicate to people inside and outside the organization?

That isn't an assertion of unequal human worth. It is an acknowledgment that roles are different. The mistake is turning a hierarchy of responsibility into a hierarchy of human value.

So When Should You Ask for a Title?

I don't think the answer is, "Never care about titles." Sometimes a title mismatch is a real organizational problem. You may have taken on substantially different responsibilities or are accountable for work without having the authority that normally accompanies it. More commonly, your role may have evolved beyond what your original title communicates.

Two things might happen to qualify you for a title change: Your organization may need clearer ownership of a particular function. Or you may be intentionally developing toward a particular area of expertise and need your formal role to reflect that direction. And sometimes, yes, you may need the title to communicate your work externally. That is part of my own situation.

I didn't ask for a new title because I suddenly became more valuable when someone put different words on my email signature. I asked because the work had changed, and I wanted the language describing my work to catch up with reality. There is a meaningful difference.

But There Is a Line

I would not necessarily tell everyone to ask their employer for a new title simply because they want a better résumé. My situation is particular. I work for a nonprofit organization where compensation is limited, and there is an established understanding openly acknowledged by leadership that people may need to develop professional opportunities outside the organization. I was transparent that external positioning was part of my motivation. But I don't think that makes titles a tool for manufacturing credentials.

There is a difference between being entrusted with new responsibility because you've demonstrated the capacity to carry it and borrowing a title to imply expertise or experience you haven't earned. One is clarification. The other is inflation. And perhaps the best test is simple:

If the title disappeared tomorrow, would the substance of your work still exist?

If the answer is yes, you're probably holding the title in the right place. If losing the title would make you feel as though you had lost your identity, perhaps the title has begun doing work it was never designed to do.

I Still Want the Title

There is something else I've realized through this process. I can believe everything I've written here and still genuinely want the title while also being disappointed if I don't receive it. Those things aren't contradictory.

If my organization decides not to change my title, I will have to find another way to communicate what I do. I can build a private portfolio and pursue freelance opportunities. Eventually, I can build a professional identity that exists beyond any one organization's vocabulary. The title would help, yes. It would make the story easier to tell. But it would not create the story.

The work came first.

This is probably the healthiest relationship we can have with professional titles. Use them. Take them seriously. Ask for them when they accurately reflect the responsibility you are carrying or the direction in which you are intentionally growing. Give them thoughtfully when you are responsible for leading others.

But don't ask for a title to tell you that you matter. A title tells people what you have been entrusted with and clarifies authority. Titles can certainly help open doors. But they cannot tell you who you are. A title should clarify your responsibility, not establish your worth.