Global Human Capital Management and Development

22Feb

You have a Job to Do

You have a Job to Do

“You may be President or Prime Minister of a country or a C-Level Executive or Management Expert of a company, however, you are what your position or job has made you. You exist in a system because of your position and role and not the vice-versa. ”

In our lives, over the span of our professional phase, there comes a time when we find ourselves at the cross-roads of our professional commitments or limitations of our job and our ethics, principles and values. Choosing the one becomes a compulsion, however, which one to choose becomes a ploy. Let me share two scenarios.

During the second term of the former President of America, George W Bush, he was disliked by not only people from the Middle-East, Arabic Countries and others from the international community but he also faced protest and hate of his own countrymen particularly those who were against the President’s move to initiate war against Iraq at the cost of the country’s economic growth and prospects. However, irrespective of the personal displeasures, hatred and abhorrence, the security officers always protected the President against any possible external threat. They did not allow their personal opinion and judgment to influence their job responsibilities and duties.

On 31^st October 1984, the then Prime Minister of India Smt. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own on-duty bodyguards. Someone who was entrusted to guard the Prime Minister killed her brutally because those bodyguards were influenced by their religious obligations and couldn’t differentiate between their professional duties and personal or religious compulsions. As a body-guard of someone, it is the duty of an individual to protect the person he is entrusted to guard. How can he let someone else or anything external to him, deviate from his job responsibility or duty?

The circumstances and scenarios discussed here are two extremes, however, in our day-to-day life, we often find ourselves in a situation where we find it difficult to choose between professional commitments and personal choices. When you are at work, you are definitely not the person of your own choice, rather you are a person related to the position that you are occupying and you are expected to honor that position and role. Whenever we take any job or get promoted to a new position, doesn’t matter if we are required to take an oath or not, however, silently we all pledge to ourselves to be honest to the role entrusted upon us. The pledge signifies that “I do solemnly swear that I will use all my talent and abilities in the discharge of the responsibilities undertaken by me. I will defend the office against all enemies, internal and external; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; That I will not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official decisions; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office in which I am about to enter and that I will not directly or indirectly communicate or reveal to any person any matter which shall be brought under my consideration or shall become known to me as may be required for the due discharge of my duties”.

Doesn’t matter if you are a C-Level Executive or a lawyer or a doctor or a management expert, your position and role is above your personal self. You may be a driver in a bus or a gardener in a public garden; it is your duty to ensure the safety of your passengers and to take care of the plants respectively without being prejudice and getting influenced by opinions and thoughts of others around you. Though it is not abnormal to find yourself at such a cross-road, however, what we choose or the choice that we make decides the kind of person that we are. It is very difficult not to get influenced by the thoughts, opinions and views of people around us and not to let our emotions control the outcome of our decision, however, the true test of a person is to take a decision that is clear and conscience and something that you won’t regret at the later stage of your life.

Kindly share your thoughts and views on this subject.

Take very good care of yourself.

Composed By: Sanjeev Himachali