LibraryPatternsFind Meaning in Your WorkI feel alive when I am leading — vision, direction, r…
Problem
Toward Craftsmanship

I feel alive when I am leading — vision, direction, real decisions. I feel hollow when I am managing — admin, process, personnel minutiae. I have more managing than leading and the balance is unsustainable.

Part of the pattern: Find Meaning in Your Work
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The path forward
  1. 1Name the imbalance
  2. 2Shift toward more leading
  3. 3Delegate the managing that drains you
One thing to try this week
Identify one piece of genuine leadership work this week and protect time for it. Do not let the management consume the day before the leadership gets any.
Related problems
A reorganisation or acquisition changed everything, and the meaning I used to find in this work died with the old version of it. The job has the same title but a different soul, and I am grieving a workplace that no longer exists.By any external measure I am successful. It does not feel good. Something is missing.Early in the career the work carried genuine passion. Over time the passion became professionalism — competent, reliable, committed, but no longer driven by what originally fuelled it. I do it well because I am a professional. That is all.Every rejection feels personal, and my mood rides the last yes or no all day.I am good at my job and I know it. But I feel almost nothing when I do it. It feels completely hollow.I am here for the pension, the insurance, the stability, and the known quantity. The meaning is thin or absent. I have been honest with myself about the financial reasons and not honest about the cost to meaning.

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