If You’re Looking For Purposeful Work, Search For A Manager, Not A Job

We’ve all had bad bosses. We can summon at least a dozen versions of a ‘bad boss’ in flash. Several of those versions made up the cast of one of the most popular television shows of our time. There was even a movie — and a sequel — titled Horrible Bosses. And yet, we search for jobs, not managers.

Job searches are outdated because work changes so quickly. We should search for managers that fit. Photo credit: Getty

What We Want From Work

More and more, people are looking for a job that gives them a sense of purpose. Actually, this is a ‘return to the farm’ in some ways as work was a source of very tangible meaning for the majority of human history. Before the ‘middle manager,’ we worked to gather, hunt, or grow food for our communities; to build homes, make shoes, or transmit news for our kin and neighbors. Work was a concrete contribution to improving the lives of people around us.

The industrial revolution distanced us from the output of our effort. We were cogs in a system, or the operators of those cogs. The knowledge economy emerged, and a large share of the US workforce became managers, consultants, lawyers, and bankers. Those roles are at least three layers separated from the ‘end user’ or beneficiary, if not many more.

Globalization and technology have given these knowledge workers a 24/7 workday that follows them everywhere. Shareholder…