Loyalty. Employers want it. Employees sometimes give it. With loyalty comes implicit trust. Sometimes giving loyalty ends up being a painful experience. Have you experienced a painful loyalty in your career?

When I think of this question, I visualize words like hurt, anger, betrayal. I’m a very loyal person. It takes a long time to earn my trust and even longer to get my loyalty. My painful loyalty occurred because I gave my loyalty to an employer. Under normal circumstances, this would have been fine. What I failed to realized is that loyalty needs to be reassessed as times change. What doesn’t change? Loyalty from pets. Loyalty is a Chow puppy. One of my pets was a Chow. He was the most loyal dog, ever!

What does change? Management changes. Leaders change. Your team changes. Any number of factors can contribute to why I should reassess my loyalty to an employer. I failed to reassess, leaving me vulnerable to letting myself feel betrayed. After that experience, I learned that workers should be committed to their jobs by working hard, being focused, and delivering results.

Should workers be loyal? Today, I argue “no.” That’s for pets, friends, family, and the Godfather. Companies are unable to be loyal to its workers. Business circumstances change. Business needs outweigh decisions to keep a loyal worker. Even founders, after an acquisition, can outlive their usefulness, being asked to leave the very company they founded. How can companies be loyal to its workers? Employers employ us, but should be expected to care of us through good times and bad? Loyalty will not keep you from being laid off. It will not protect you, when the company has to survive by getting rid of half of its workforce.

As you can see, I would not give up my loyalty to an employer again. Now, I understand they may have competing interests to my economic well being. What a company can expect for me? I will be committed to my performance, my job, and the company’s success. I’m sure this decision could change, if this hypothetical company became my friends and extended family. But even then, I’m no longer naive to think that my loyalty would protect me from a layoff or job elimination. I would expect the company to do the right thing by protecting their business viability, even if it meant laying me off.

Have you been in a work or career experience where you encountered a painful loyalty? Would you do it again if you could?

____________________________________

12 Questions for Career Mindfulness Series

The 12 Questions for Career Mindfulness Series reflects on twelve questions to help you reflect about the course of your career. Perhaps once you see your answers, you’ll see patterns or maybe you won’t. These questions conjure up memories of jobs that may still create some undercurrent of discomfort. I hope some questions validate your strengths or your weaknesses, while some questions provoke a memory that you thought you forgot.

1. How was the first day of your last job? How was the last day of your first job?
2. If you wrote an email to yourself on attitude adjustment, how would it read?
3. What things did you do or love as a child that explains how your work today?
4. Write about a phone call that changed everything in your life.
5. Write about the book that changed everything in your career.
6. If you could ask a former boss a question you wanted to ask, what would that question be?
7. Have you experienced a painful loyalty?
8. What happened on a workday that was different?
9. How did it all go wrong so fast?
10. What if you didn’t get that job?
11. What is the elephant in the room?
12. What if you finally get to do what you always wanted?

I’ll post one question on career mindfulness per work day for the rest of June 2009. For previous entries in this series, click here.

Similar Posts:

• 12 Questions for Career Mindfulness: #12 What if you finally get to do what you always wanted?
• 12 Questions for Career Mindfulness: #10 What if you didn’t get that job?
• 12 Questions for Career Mindfulness: #9 How did it all go wrong so fast?
• 12 Questions for Career Mindfulness: #6 If you could ask a former boss a question, what would you ask?
• 12 Questions for Career Mindfulness: #11 What is the elephant in the room?