General consensus defines entitlement as coming from an abyss of unfounded and unproven abilities. In short: people feeling (unjustly) deserving of whatever professional rewards they can grab. Essentially, these are misguided (although ambitious) workers pushing hubris onto an unfortunate employer.
This, however, is only the ugly side of entitlement.
There’s another side of the entitlement coin.
Empowerment at Work (Entitlement, too)
Both need to exist in your career for good work to thrive and professional rewards to remain relevant.
If you take ownership in your professional goals, it’ll be the main stuff of a satisfying career.
Workers who don’t feel empowered have very little entitlement invested in their jobs (or, on a more general note, their own strengths and abilities). Research and studies (I couldn’t link to) about empowerment have major ground in hospital management. Hospitals were trying to figure out ways to run better, improve morale and lower the absurdly high turnover rate – mainly amongst nurses.
They started with creating policies designed to empower them.
Information had to be shared from top to bottom (and vice versa). Doctors had to take an interest in their working relationships with the nurses. Primarily, it involved doctors fostering a more collaborative environment.
When the nurses felt empowered, they felt respected. When they felt respected, they were even more committed to the work involved.
A key word that gets thrown around a lot in relation to empowerment?
Synergy. This is what empowerment (and entitlement) create.
Empowerment is about sharing information. The more information you have, the more you can manage your career (or your day job).
This synergy creates the empowerment that fuels entitlement. However, if the entitlement is not there, then you just have a bunch of information and no way to properly use it.
Entitlement can be a dirty, 4-letter word – but it doesn’t have to be
There are bunches of scholarly discussions about Gen Ys navigating the multigenerational workforce. Why is this such a big deal? Perhaps to make sure that so many different people don’t feel irrelevant to each other over the course of an 8-hour work day.
Gen Ys feel entitled to respect because they think they have so much to contribute. The same can be said for Baby Boomers and everyone else in between.
If everyone is trying to do the same thing (innovate, contribute and foster growth in their professional environment) why is there so much multigenerational tension?
Simple: over entitlement.
Malcolm Gladwelll’s Outliers (remember when I was reading that?) focuses discussion on entitlement as tweaking one’s environment to suit his/her needs. People who have become captains of industry (or just plain ol’ great) are nimble at this.
Environmental tweaks originate from the synergies created when one feels empowered over their work and goals they’ve set forth. In short, standing up for what you want and finding ways to get it is how entitlement truly manifests itself in a good career.
If you have too much empowerment or are over indulging in your fair share of entitlement, you may look like this:
- someone with lots of genius ideas and no way to properly implement them or have them taken seriously (i.e. Chris Lagan)
- someone with no real creativity or viable track record expecting huge accomplishments with little effort