loyalty
A friend once called me loyal, which is generally considered a good thing when it comes to friendship, but my initial reaction was to be offended. (Just a little.) It took me a minute to realize it was meant as a compliment.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that reaction. Seriously, it’s been over a year since it happened and I still think about it from time to time. Why were my initial feelings negative?
There’s just something about loyalty that implies—I don’t know—willful ignorance? According to Google, loyalty is about support, allegiance, faithfulness, and devotion. But, in my mind, it’s someone who follows blindly, ignores evidence to the contrary, and doesn’t think for themselves. It’s like being called stupid.
That, of course, isn’t what my friend meant. At least, I hope not. I would assume he was saying that I’m dependable? That I’m there for him even when things aren’t great?
As a career counselor who sees everything through the lens of work, I found loyalty to be confounding here as well. Sometimes it’s a good thing—it certainly is for your current employer. High turnover, recruiting, and training new staff is all enormously expensive. It’s great to have loyal employees. Companies even screen for it. When someone jumps from one job to another every few months it’s a big red flag for hiring.
At the same time, people who do move from one job to another—in a more reasonable time frame like every two or three years—tend to make more money and get promoted more frequently than people who just stay at the same company. So which is it? Is loyalty good or bad for your career?
You’ve probably guessed by now that I don’t have the answer to this and you would be correct. I did, however, do an informal poll around the Media Lab and here’s what they had to say:
“Loyalty is good, unless it’s mob-style loyalty. That comes with… problems. It’s possibly good for your career, but I feel like there are a lot of ways for it to be abused. What are you loyal to? A company? Companies are not people. I guess when I first hear "loyalty" I think of family and friends and my commitment to them. When you say work loyalty, I start asking questions.” -someone I think of as a mentor even though I wouldn’t call her that to her face
“My reaction is positive. Like, oh they’re loyal to a person or a brand. For careers, I think it’s less of a positive, but I wouldn't consider it a negative. I think you can certainly be loyal to your company, but you can also do a good job without a strong sense of loyalty. I think it’s maybe just not a good descriptor to use for work.” -the most efficient and competent person I’ve ever worked with
“I think it’s generally good, but I guess context matters. Loyalty and trust are connected—that's why it would be a good thing. I do want to know if loyalty is good for my career! Because as someone who would prefer to be rewarded for loyalty to a company, I don't believe it actually works that way. I think you're more likely to be promoted or paid more if you leave.” -quite possibly the most interesting person in an entire lab full of interesting people
(These views are just the opinions of some of my coworkers and do not represent the Media Lab. Neither does anything else I write, obviously.)
So, maybe my reaction was a little weird. Again, it’s complicated. Luckily, it’s a little less complex when it comes to careers. I can’t answer whether it’s objectively good or bad for your career, but I can say that it’s almost never a mistake to optimize your career decisions based on your own values—whether that’s loyalty or not.
If you value getting more money and moving up the ladder more quickly, then switching jobs every couple of years makes sense. If you want to hang onto that political capital you’ve built up in your office to get more flexibility in your hours because you value work life balance, then maybe don’t move around too much.
The career counselors who are reading this are rolling their eyes. (Why did you subscribe to this? I have nothing to offer you! You’re making me self-conscious!) I will admit that this is simplifying it a bit. Figuring out your values can be a somewhat involved process, but the point is that “Is loyalty good or bad?” is the wrong question.
The right one is way more context-specific—way more you-specific. A better question is, “What do you value?” If it’s loyalty in yourself or others, great! If not, also great! React accordingly.
interesting reads
A whole article on being petty about grammar. I’m terrible at this stuff and always benefit from working with an editor, but I still loved it. Read here.
How to identify a toxic work culture before accepting a job offer. More here.
cool jobs
It’d be so neat to work at Pew Research Center. Here’s a role for a research assistant working on social and demographic trends in the US. Apply here.
I bet LinkedIn has so much interesting data about people’s careers and whoever gets this data scientist role will probably get to play with all of it. More info here.