“People management is a choice”… okay. So what else is there?

In our A Better Brussels work, we often say this line: People management is not a mandate. It’s a choice. And almost every time, the reaction is the same. Nods. A few relieved smiles. Sometimes a visible exhale. Then, usually after a pause, someone asks the quieter question:

“Okay… but if people management isn’t my path for progression… then what?”

That’s often where the conversation slows down. Because, from what we’re seeing and hearing, many people have only ever been shown one legitimate way forward.

Why we think alternatives are so hard to picture (even when we want them)

Across conversations, listening sessions, messages we weren’t meant to publish, and stories people share once they feel safe enough to do so, a few patterns keep repeating.

Titles do a lot of heavy lifting here

In a city where credibility often travels faster than context, titles become shortcuts to legitimacy, access, and authority.

Which means that expertise without a managerial label can struggle to register, even when it’s central to the work. We’ve heard this frustration more times than we can count.

Pressure keeps the default in place

Many organisations are running on urgency: deadlines, politics, funding cycles, reputational risk.

In that environment, building nuanced career paths tends to fall into the “later” pile. Until later shows up as burnout, disengagement, or people quietly leaving — or staying, but switching off.

Leadership is still read as oversight

We also notice how often leadership is still equated with line management.

Other forms of leadership, intellectual, relational, convening, cultural, are talked about in principle, but rarely rewarded in practice.

So even when people are told they have “options”, the signals they receive often point in one direction.

What happens when the ladder only goes one way

When people feel that people management is the only credible route to progress, a familiar set of consequences tends to follow. We see:

• talented experts stepping into management roles they never actively chose, often without real support 

• strong subject-matter experts burning out because management is treated as a promotion, not a profession 

• expertise thinning out as senior contributors move further away from the work they’re best at

• frustration going underground, because naming it can feel risky

Over time, this doesn’t just affect individuals. It shapes culture… slowly, subtly, and not always in healthy ways.

A small but important pause

We want to be clear about something. This isn’t a critique of people management.

From everything we’ve seen, good people managers and coaches are essential. They hold teams, cultures, and organisations together, often under difficult conditions.

The issue isn’t people management itself. It’s what happens when it becomes the default — or the only — recognised way to grow.

From our perspective, choice only exists when alternatives are real, visible, and respected.

The paths we hear about least but need to talk about more

In some organisations, still too few, other paths do exist. We hear about them occasionally, usually as exceptions rather than norms:

• senior expert tracks with real influence

• advisory or fellow-style roles

• project-based leadership without permanent line management

• convening, mentoring, or systems roles

• hybrid paths that change over time

What strikes us how rarely they’re named, made visible, or normalised in Brussels. And if you can’t see a path, it’s hard to aim for it.

Why A Better Brussels is naming this now

We’re not sharing this as a solution or a blueprint.

We’re naming it because it’s a tension we keep encountering — quietly, repeatedly, and often between the lines.

To open up questions like:

• What kinds of contribution do we actually reward here?

• Who gets to progress — and under what conditions?

• What would it take to make non-managerial leadership feel legitimate?

And maybe most importantly:

What conversations are we avoiding because we don’t yet have the language for them?

This is an invitation. If any of this sounds familiar, we’d genuinely like to hear from you:

• if you’ve felt nudged (or pushed) into people management

• if you’ve opted out and felt the consequences

• if you’ve seen alternatives work — or quietly fail

• if you’re trying to build something different from the inside

These conversations rarely move because someone publishes the “right answer”. They move when people recognise themselves in what’s being named. 

And from what we can tell, many already do.