Job titles carry more weight than people want to admit.
They’re shorthand for seniority, status, and progression.
They’re how people explain what they do at dinner.
They’re how your resume gets scanned in a stack of 300 others.
And inside organisations, they’re a subtle form of currency.
I see it all the time.
Someone’s got “Manager” in their title, but no direct reports.
Someone’s called a “Lead” but has zero accountability.
There are “Coordinators” running million-dollar workflows while “Specialists” are still learning the basics.
None of it makes sense.
Until you realise most job titles aren’t designed.
They’re negotiated. In backroom chats. In offer letters. In ego-driven decisions that were never meant to hold up over time.
And that’s where things start to break.
Because the title ends up driving the PD.
Instead of the PD being a reflection of the actual role.
When Titles Drive PDs, Clarity Dies
I’ve been brought into projects where a restructure is happening, and my job is to map out the new role architecture. Clean things up. Align tasks, capabilities, and levels.
And almost every time, the first fight is over job titles.
Not structure. Not responsibilities. Not even pay.
Titles.
Because titles are where people anchor their sense of identity, power, and growth.
So what happens?
The organisation bends the role to suit the title — not the other way around.
You end up with PDs that inflate responsibilities to justify a fancier title.
Or that sand down real accountability to match a legacy classification.
It’s a mess. And it makes everything harder:
- Career pathways become skewed
- Capability frameworks lose coherence
- Pay bands start to drift
- Managers struggle to explain why two people with similar jobs have totally different titles
And when things go wrong — when someone underperforms, when a claim is made, when someone challenges a restructure — those PDs can’t be defended.
Because they’re not grounded in reality. They’re built to satisfy optics.
That’s not sustainable.
What I Do Instead — And How I Keep It Honest
I don’t let titles drive the design anymore. I flip it.
I start with the work.
What needs to get done?
What outcomes is this role accountable for?
What decisions do they make?
Who do they influence? Who do they lead? What capability level are they operating at?
Only once that’s clear do I even touch the job title.
I have a framework for this — part of the WorkLuma design lens — where titles are tied to accountability levels and skill depth, not noise.
A “Coordinator” should coordinate.
A “Manager” should manage people or processes.
A “Lead” should lead directionally — not just do the work.
A “Specialist” should have defined expertise.
A “Director” should direct, not execute.
Simple. Clear. Defensible.
But it takes guts to hold the line.
Because sometimes you’ll get pushback.
“Can we call them a Senior Manager so it looks better on LinkedIn?”
“They won’t accept unless we put ‘Lead’ in the title.”
“This team’s been Coordinators for years — we can’t downgrade them now.”
I don’t ignore that context. I name it.
I make the trade-offs explicit.
If you inflate the title, fine — but acknowledge what that does to your structure.
If you break alignment, document why.
If you fudge the level to land a hire, have a plan to fix it later.
Because PDs aren’t just HR docs.
They’re a reflection of your operating system.
And if you build that system on politics, not principle — you’ll feel it.
Not today. But later.
In pay parity challenges. In promotion disputes. In retention slumps. In org design rework that costs you months.
So here’s my rule:
Build the role.
Write the PD.
Then pick the title that fits.
Not the one that flatters.
Not the one that quiets someone down.
The one that reflects the work — and holds up over time.
Because at some point, that title will be tested.
And when it is, you want the role behind it to be real.