Every leadership role I’ve ever held did not exist before I took them. They were undefined, unprecedented, and… well… unclear. Getting clear on those roles was difficult, and I’ve had varying degrees of success. However, through those experiences I learned a technique that I find tremendously valuable and continue to use for every job I have. That technique is writing a personal job description.

A lack of role clarity is one of the most frustrating professional experiences you can have. The personal job description is a simple but powerful way to process ambiguity and clarify what actually matters in your role, regardless of how well-established it is.

But don’t you already have a job description? Why would you write your own version?

Why your actual Job Description lies to you

The reality is that your official job description is likely lying to you. In truth, Job Descriptions are not primarily for communicating your responsibilities. They are, in fact, compliance documents; they focus on outlining requirements for a variety of employment laws around occupational health and safety, equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and disability accommodations, among others. Ideally, an accurate accounting of responsibilities would support those goals, but more often job descriptions deal in broad strokes and leave significant room for interpretation.

Another factor is how they are written. Given their regulatory nature, updating job descriptions is often an administrative exercise that gets delegated to busy people with many other priorities, and usually operating on a deadline. Sometimes the responsible parties are not very familiar with the role. Most people tasked with writing job descriptions are also not professional writers and may have, at best, mediocre writing skills. So, the resulting product inevitably ends up less precise and descriptive as it should be.

However, most importantly, roles change and evolve faster than the document can. So even a picture-perfect job description with impeccable language and specificity will eventually go out of date. The bottom line is that you can’t rely on your official job description as a source of truth for your responsibilities.

Enter the personal job description.

What is a personal job description?

A personal job description is a simple document that you create that outlines your current understanding of your role. Importantly, it is a living document: you update it at regular intervals and when you sense that your role is evolving.

Unlike an official job description, you have no regulatory boxes to check, so it can be rather flexible. However, there are some key components to include:

1. The Purpose of your role
   1. Why does your role exist? What is the value it provides to the organization?
2. Your key areas of responsibility
   1. 5-8 broad domains that you are responsible for.
   2. this might include categories such as “staff development”, “operations”, and “quality of care” for instance
3. Core responsibilities/tasks
   1. under each area of responsibility, list the core re-occurring responsibilities that come up
   2. what are you expected to produce, oversee, or maintain in each area?
4. The key Outcomes you are accountable for
   1. how do you know you’re “doing a good job” in each area?
   2. what does success mean in measurable terms?
   3. Are there subjective indicators?
   4. Aim for 1 or 2 for each area.

Put this in any format that resonates and is easy to update. It does not need to be elaborate or formal, just clear, comprehensive, concise, and readable. Aim to keep it under 2 pages total.

The value of a personal job description

If that sounds like a good amount of work to create, it is. So why would you put forth that effort? What value does it provide to you as a leader? There are really two ways this provides value – one is to you personally, and the other is relational with your oversight.

On a personal level, the PJD provides a structured place to process and work out the ambiguities that come with your role. Writing has been the primary tool that humans use to clarify and externalize thinking for millenia. Taking the time to think through and crystallize your responsibilities and how they align with the purpose of your role is powerful for prioritization. Further, developing language that clearly and concisely describes what you do and how it creates value helps you both understand and communicate your role and contributions to others more effectively. It can also help identify where you are NOT clear. Often, role tension shows up as a vague feeling of misalignment, and creating or revising a PJD can help you pinpoint precisely where the conflict resides.

The real value of a PJD, however, is not internal, its about alignment. A lot of leadership frustration stems from mismatched expectations between frontline leaders and their oversight. The PJD provides a powerful tool to clarify expectations with your boss. Use it as a centerpiece for deliberate conversations about expectations. I’ve found this extremely useful for getting alignment on how I’m spending my time, and on what results I should be driving towards. I’ve even discovered significant misalignments, and having my own understanding laid out clearly in writing makes correcting that issue so much easier. You need not explain to your boss the entire philosophy behind a PJD, just frame it as “I jotted down what I feel are the core aspects of my role, and I wanted to get your thoughts to make sure we’re aligned.” You can even take it area-by-area if you want to go slow or if there’s specific tensions you want to address. Clarifying expectations can be really difficult, but the PJD provides a concrete foundation for an otherwise abstract conversation.

How new leaders can use this tool

This is such a useful tool that I recommend new leaders start compiling it as soon as their second month. It’s a helpful collection bucket as you learn your responsibilities, and helps surface ambiguities early. How complete and clear your personal job description feels becomes a useful litmus test for your progress in learning the role. Further, initiating the “expectations” conversation with your boss toward the latter part of your first 90 days is an extremely valuable exercise for calibrating your understanding. Finally, once you have that initial draft, it gives you a baseline to return to when priorities become unclear, or when you role evolves and new responsibilities enter the picture.

Let me know if you’re interested in learning more about the process for creating a personal job description. Because clarity and alignment are important enough to have their own protocols.