The Right-and Wrong-Stuff: How Brilliant Careers Are Made and Unmade

by Carter Cast

Affiliation is the need for maintaining close, friendly relationships with people; the desire to belong to a group and to be liked, preferring collaboration over competition. If you’re highly motivated by affiliation, you are probably a team player who is a good listener and sensitive to perspectives of others. You are likely skilled at building team spirit to accomplish goals.

People oriented toward personal power generally seek status and recognition and try to control others, while those with an institutional power drive try to organize the efforts of a team to further the company’s goals. If you have a strong power motive, at your best you seek to empower others and work to accomplish group goals. You are effective at influencing others toward your end goal and are able to work through organizational hierarchies to figure out how to complete complex, cross functional initiatives.

Autonomy is the desire to have control over your work and the ability to determine what direction to pursue. If you’re highly motivated by autonomy, the chances are good that you prefer to have discretion over your task (you decide what needs to be done), your time (you determine how to spend it), your method (you figure out how to do it), and your team (you choose with whom to work).

Purpose is the need to be part of something bigger than yourself. If you are highly motivated by purpose, you are likely drawn to organizations and assignments that have a guiding mission that connects your work to some social good that aligns with an important personal value.

What two or three things does the company really emphasize? What are the unwritten rules of behavior at the company? Does it have a mission statement? How about a statement of values? What kind of person does well at the company? Who doesn’t do well there and why?

This alarming finding comes from research on 360-degree feedback on more than six thousand people ranging from individual contributors to managers and senior-level managers in 140 countries. Over forty-seven thousand bosses, peers, direct reports, and customers rated these workers on a variety of job-related skills and competencies. Not only was “developing others” rated dead last in terms of skills that managers have, but “motivating others” was rated fifty-ninth out of the sixty-seven competencies examined and “building effective teams” was rated fifty-seventh. You

First, I ask ‘What is one thing you think you did well?’ Then I shut up and listen. When they’re done talking, I say, ‘Here is one thing I think you did well.’ These first two steps build their confidence. Then I ask them, ‘What’s one thing you would do differently?’ Then I shut up and listen. When they’re done talking, I say, ‘Here’s one thing I think you could have done differently.’ These last two steps build their skills. Then I am DONE. I don’t pile on, providing feedback in multiple areas. People can remember and act upon one

Behaviors that suggest self-confidence or assertiveness in men often are interpreted as arrogant or abrasive in women and are frowned upon rather than rewarded.

The best performers are always trying to improve by learning and adjusting. Get into the habit of asking for feedback from your boss, your peers, and your subordinates immediately after you make a presentation or complete a project or activity.

So find opportunities—such as volunteering to lead special projects and signing up for task forces—that allow you to get to know the C-suite folks better.

Changing grooved behavior is hard; you will need to find people to support you along the way. First and foremost, you want your boss as one of them. That said, you also need to enlist friends, peers, and perhaps a mentor to hold a mirror up to your face when necessary and to prod and encourage you to work on changing old behaviors and developing new skills.

Develop methods, guidelines, even devices, that will reinforce the new behavior you’re working to develop.