Three Types of Professional Identity
Singularity, Multiplicity, and Hybridity
Until now, professional identity has been binary, you’re either this or that. That could mean you shift identities moment to moment, like being an event planner and then two minutes later being the website designer, or it could mean actually changing jobs. Maybe, last year you were in sales, and now you’re doing consulting.
But, professional identity is actually a spectrum. You don’t have to be one thing, or one thing at a time, or even a list of things. It’s possible to be multiple identities at the same time.
Moving from this or that means you get to be this AND that. This requires a new type of professional identity, a third type, one where identities get to merge together and exist simultaneously. That’s where hybrid identity comes in. Hybridity is what happens when two or more identities combine for a period of time.
Here’s the breakdown of the three types of professional identity:
Singularity= People who do one thing (either in a moment or for a lifetime). Experts and specialists use singularity the most. After all, we want people who are incredible at brain surgery and have advanced skills and knowledge in very specific areas.
Multiplicity= People who do many things (either in one role or as many separate jobs). There are a bunch of terms to describe this type of identity. Some of my favorites are: polymaths, jobcrafters, gig economy workers, multi-talented or multi-passionate professionals, multi-potentialites, freelancers, slashes, renaissance souls, and Jacks or Jills-of-all-trades. We see multiplicity a lot in today’s workforce. People are listing multiple identities on their business cards and LinkedIn profile headers. Yet, multiplicity means doing one at a time. There’s no overlap.
Hybridity= People who blend and combine multiple professional identities together, working from the intersections of those identities. You have to have at least two professional identities to have hybridity. The important distinction in hybridity is that professional identities are being integrated, and the overlap is where a person’s unique value lies. Hybrid professionals perform exceptional feats because they are hybridizing work skills.