"Chief of What Now?" — A Meditation on Titles, Egos, and Acronyms of Insecurity
Lindsay R. Dodd
22 Jul, 2025
There is a curious disease sweeping the modern workplace. It’s not burnout, boredom, or even back-to-back Zoomitis (though all are very real). No — I’m referring to Title Obsession Syndrome. Or TOS, which, ironically, could also stand for Totally Overinflated Status.
Now before you gasp and clutch your pearls, let me clarify: I am not saying titles are completely useless. After all, my own comes with a delightful prefix — “Dr.” — which I earned through long hours, coffee-induced madness, and the existential agony of academic formatting. But what I am saying is that we've collectively gone a bit... bonkers.
Allow me to explain. Read on…
From Janitor to “Environmental Atmosphere Enhancement Specialist”
Once upon a simpler time, Bob cleaned the floors. We called him “Bob the Janitor.” He was good at it. Floors sparkled, bins were emptied, and every so often he’d offer you a mint from his pocket. Then HR got involved. Suddenly Bob became Senior Vice President of Environmental Atmosphere Enhancement. His business card was too long for his lanyard. He didn’t get a raise, but he did get a LinkedIn endorsement from someone in Bulgaria.
And the reality: Bob still cleans the floors.
The Insecurity of Acronyms
There is a direct relationship between the length of your title and the depth of your insecurity.
“I’m the G.R.I.T. Officer.”
—“Oh? What’s that?”
“Growth, Resilience, Innovation, and Transformation.”
—“So… Change Manager?”
“NO. It’s more holistic.”
In my time consulting across sectors, I’ve met:
Chief Evangelists
Chief Visionary Sherpas
Deputy Director of Synergy Alignment
Principal Story Architect
and, my personal favourite, a “Global Harmoniser of Brand Soul”
That last one? She managed the corporate Instagram. (To be fair, she did it with stunning Helvetica.)
Titles, it seems, have become less about clarity and more about camouflage. If your job is impossible to explain in a sentence without sounding like you're pitching a TED Talk, you may be overcompensating.
Why Are We So Hung Up on Titles?
There are a few reasons, and none of them flattering:
Validation: A title is often a socially sanctioned way of saying “I matter.”
Protection: If no one knows what you actually do, they’re less likely to question it.
Hierarchy: Humans love a good pecking order — especially if we can peck downward.
LinkedIn Bragging Rights: “Just got promoted to VP of Strategic Insight Delivery” gets more likes than “Still trying to make sense of Excel.”
Lanyard Envy: Yes, it’s a thing.
But here’s what’s truly absurd: we have built invisible fences around ourselves using these labels. Your business card becomes a perimeter. Stay in your lane, stick to your silo, know your sector, obey the dotted line of the org chart.
What if — just hear me out — what if we worked like humans instead of job descriptions?
The Curse of “That’s Not My Title”
Years ago, I led a workshop where the coffee machine exploded — literally exploded — spewing espresso foam like an angry Roman fountain. As the smoke cleared, I turned to a well-dressed participant near me and said, “Could you help me unplug this before the fire alarm goes off?”
He looked at me and said, “I’m the Deputy Director of Client Strategy.” I had to hold my tongue. Was he serious?
Right.
Eventually, an intern came over and handled it (bless him), while our Deputy Strategist carefully avoided electrical death by virtue of executive immunity. Because nowhere in his title did it say fire hazard wrangler.
This is the problem. We’ve allowed titles to limit us, rather than liberate us. We hide behind them like toddlers behind furniture. We point at org charts like they’re legal documents. We say, “that’s not my job” and forget we’re all, ultimately, just here to do some good work — and clean up the mess when the coffee hits the fan.
The Startup Counterattack
Now, I must give credit to startups. They’ve attempted a countercultural movement — the “flat hierarchy revolution.” Their philosophy? Titles are so corporate, man.
So instead of “CFO,” you’re “Money Guru.”
Instead of “Operations Lead,” you’re “Chaos Wrangler.”
Instead of “Head of Sales,” you’re “Revenue Ninja.”
And instead of “CEO,” you’re “Chief Encouragement Officer.”
Which sounds delightful until payroll fails, and no one knows who’s actually in charge.
The anti-title crowd often swings too far the other way. While I appreciate the effort to deconstruct hierarchy, calling everyone a “Product Whisperer” is no more helpful than the old-school “Executive Vice President of Middle Management Affairs.”
There is a middle path.
The Sensible Side of Titles
Let’s not throw the title-baby out with the bathwater. Some titles are useful.
Doctor: So I know whom to trust when I’m choking.
Pilot: So I don’t ask the baggage handler to land the plane.
Plumber: So I don’t call my cousin Greg to fix the geyser again.
Titles, at their best, communicate expertise. They provide clarity, direction, and, yes, a degree of earned pride. But the key word is earned — not invented, inflated, or algorithmically generated by an AI tool called Titletron 3000.
When Titles Become Self-Parody
Let me tell you about a real-life meeting I attended in 2019. Present were:
The Chief Human Capital Partner (Translation: Head of HR)
The Director of Organisational Spiritual Engagement (Internal Comms)
The Senior Alignment Officer (Project Manager)
The Vice-President of Ecosystem Enablement (IT Infrastructure)
Me (Consultant. No flair, just caffeine.)
The meeting was about increasing cross-functional collaboration. Irony? Off the charts.
It took us 17 minutes just to introduce ourselves and another 12 to clarify what “Ecosystem Enablement” actually meant. It was a forest of titles, and not a tree of action in sight.
The Origins of Title Inflation
Where did this madness begin?
Some say it started when “Secretary” became “Executive Assistant,” which became “Executive Coordinator,” which became “Chief of Staff.” Others blame Silicon Valley, where job titles are optimized for investor confidence and can include more action verbs than a Superhero film.
I think the truth is simpler: insecurity.
We fear not being enough.
We fear being overlooked.
We fear that if we don’t label ourselves impressively, someone might mistake us for ordinary.
But here’s something to think about: ordinary people do extraordinary things every day. Usually without needing to call themselves Senior Transformational Experience Designers.
Titles and the Ego Economy
We now live in an ego economy. It’s not just about what you do, it’s about what you seem to be. Titles are part of your personal brand, your elevator pitch, your badge of self-worth.
Need proof?
Observe a networking event. The moment someone says, “I’m a Chief Something-Or-Other,” watch the eyebrow arching, the subtle nods, the secret internal race to calculate hierarchy.
Now watch the body language shift when someone says, “I’m in admin.”
Suddenly they’re less interesting. Less worthy of the free hors d’oeuvres. Never mind that without them, the entire company would collapse into an ungovernable heap of Outlook invites and passive-aggressive sticky notes.
We’ve confused status with substance, brand with value, labels with identity.
The Ludicrous Future of Titles
If we continue at this pace, by 2030 we’ll see roles like:
Chief Intergalactic Synergy Curator
Quantum Wellness Architect
VP of Post-Relational Emotional Coding
Director of Digital Existentialism
Head of AI-Person Empathy Translation Services
And somewhere, in a quiet corner of the office, a person will still be turning the Wi-Fi off and on again so Karen in Finance can access her spreadsheet.
Without a title. Without applause.
What If We Worked Without Walls?
Imagine a world where your title was secondary to your impact.
Where you could step up, pitch in, cross lanes, and collaborate freely — not because it was in your JD (Job Description), but because it was the right thing to do.
Imagine interns mentoring executives. Engineers redesigning workflows. Receptionists suggesting strategic shifts. CEOs helping clean up after the company lunch — without a photographer present.
What if we led with our humanity, not our headers?
Dr Dodd’s Practical Title Guide
To help navigate the madness, I offer a few humble rules:
If your title takes more than six seconds to say, it’s too long.
If you can’t explain what you do to a ten-year-old, rethink the wording.
If your title sounds like a Marvel superhero, remove one noun and one adjective.
If you need a glossary to onboard new hires, start again.
If you feel your title is the most important thing about you, log off and take a walk.
Final Thoughts: Beyond the Badge
I’ll admit it — I enjoy my “Dr.” It gets me a good table at conferences, and occasionally someone mistakes me for a medical professional in airports. (I once helped diagnose jet lag with unnecessary authority.)
But I’d happily trade it, and all the fancy job titles I’ve worn over the years, if it meant working in a culture where titles mattered less than teamwork, generosity, and impact.
So next time someone asks what you do, try this: tell them what you actually do — not what your email signature says.
“Hi, I’m Lindsay. I help people untangle leadership messes and find their inner human.”
Not bad. And not a synergy architect in sight.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to update my business card.
It currently says:
“Supreme Chancellor of Clarity and Coffee.”
…Which, frankly, is not inaccurate.
Yours in title-trimming truth,
Dr Lindsay R Dodd
(Recovering Job Description Addict)