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#YourCareer : Scientists Discover The Link Between Your Personality & Degree Of Career Success. Can Personality Change Boost Career Success? A MUst REad!

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You might have noticed that some people seem to scale the career ladder quicker, while others often get stuck at lower rungs along the way. The differences in career trajectories are often a function of personality type. A body of research has shown, for example, that optimists have lower stress levels than pessimists and scoot up the success ladder faster and farther than pessimists. New sales personnel with an optimistic outlook sell 37% more life insurance in their first two years than pessimists. In two new studies, scientists reveal the personality traits that predict career success.

Five Personality Types And Career Success

The first study examined the “Big Five” personality dimensions: neuroticism, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and openness to understand their relationship to career outcomes. The results will be published in the February 2021 issue of the Journal of Vocational Behavior.

Researchers at Cleveland State University surveyed 496 employees (318 men and 178 women) in a diverse set of occupations and organizations on the five personality dimensions. Results of a statistical analysis showed that extroverted employees had greater satisfaction with salaries, promotions and overall career satisfaction; whereas workers who scored high on neuroticism (for example, moodiness, anxiety, worry, fear or frustration) were less likely to be satisfied with their careers.

Those who were high in agreeableness had less career satisfaction, and high openness scores were negatively related to salary level. The research team detected a significant negative relationship between agreeableness and salary among those in people-oriented occupations but no relationship for those in occupations not involving a strong “people” component.

Can Personality Change Boost Career Success?

A second study published in the December 2020 issue of Psychological Science found that if you make a personality change, it can lead to higher levels of job success. Dr. Kevin Hoff at the University of Houston and his research team tracked two representative samples of youth for approximately 12 years from late adolescence (about 17 years old) to young adulthood (about 29 years old). Growth in emotional stability, conscientiousness and extroversion were the personality traits that most predicted career satisfaction and success. Specifically, conscientiousness changes were linked to career satisfaction; emotional stability changes were tied closely to income and career satisfaction; and extroversion changes were linked to career and job satisfaction.

Youth who developed higher levels of conscientiousness and emotional stability during the transition to employment were more successful in aspects of their early careers. This is the first study to assess the predictive power of personality changes for a broad range of career outcomes across more than a decade of young adulthood. Overall, the findings show that personality has important effects on early career outcomes—both through stable trait levels and how people change over time. According to Hoff, “The study showed you’re not just stuck with your personality traits, and if you change over time in positive ways, that can have a big impact on your career.”

 

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Optimism And Career Success

Extroversion has a leg up on the career ladder for success in both studies. Emotional stability and conscientiousness are not far behind. But neuroticism stands out as the biggest personality obstacle to career success which matches previous findings that pessimism holds workers at the lowest rungs. While extroversion is not necessarily a prerequisite to achieve career success, emotional stability, conscientiousness and a degree of optimism are. Your mental health and mindset towards your career carry more weight than how outgoing you are. If you’re an introvert, you might find it hard to change, but you can get mental health support if you need it, and you can learn to be more optimistic.

Optimists are not smiley-face romantics looking through rose-colored glasses, nor do they possess some magical joy juice. Their ability to look on the positive side of a negative situation enables them to overcome career obstacles. When you enlarge your perspective and see gains in your losses, the upside of a downside situation, how far you’ve come in addition to how far you have to go and beginnings in endings, your positive outlook arms you with the potential for career success at the highest rung.

A second study published in the December 2020 issue of Psychological Science found that if you make a personality change, it can lead to higher levels of job success. Dr. Kevin Hoff at the University of Houston and his research team tracked two representative samples of youth for approximately 12 years from late adolescence (about 17 years old) to young adulthood (about 29 years old). Growth in emotional stability, conscientiousness and extroversion were the personality traits that most predicted career satisfaction and success. Specifically, conscientiousness changes were linked to career satisfaction; emotional stability changes were tied closely to income and career satisfaction; and extroversion changes were linked to career and job satisfaction.

Youth who developed higher levels of conscientiousness and emotional stability during the transition to employment were more successful in aspects of their early careers. This is the first study to assess the predictive power of personality changes for a broad range of career outcomes across more than a decade of young adulthood. Overall, the findings show that personality has important effects on early career outcomes—both through stable trait levels and how people change over time. According to Hoff, “The study showed you’re not just stuck with your personality traits, and if you change over time in positive ways, that can have a big impact on your career.”

Optimism And Career Success

Extroversion has a leg up on the career ladder for success in both studies. Emotional stability and conscientiousness are not far behind. But neuroticism stands out as the biggest personality obstacle to career success which matches previous findings that pessimism holds workers at the lowest rungs. While extroversion is not necessarily a prerequisite to achieve career success, emotional stability, conscientiousness and a degree of optimism are. Your mental health and mindset towards your career carry more weight than how outgoing you are. If you’re an introvert, you might find it hard to change, but you can get mental health support if you need it, and you can learn to be more optimistic.

Optimists are not smiley-face romantics looking through rose-colored glasses, nor do they possess some magical joy juice. Their ability to look on the positive side of a negative situation enables them to overcome career obstacles. When you enlarge your perspective and see gains in your losses, the upside of a downside situation, how far you’ve come in addition to how far you have to go and beginnings in endings, your positive outlook arms you with the potential for career success at the highest rung.

 

Author: Bryan Robinson, Ph.D.

…

 

Forbes.com – December 5, 2020

#Strategy : 4 Steps To Overcome Adversity And Amplify Your Success…When you Consider the Statistic that 60% of Americans are Unhappy With their Occupation, It Becomes Apparent That the Majority of Us are Not Aligned With our Purpose or, Consequently, our Potential.

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“The truth is that customers don’t typically care who you are or what you have to offer unless they can see that there is clear and obvious value being offered in the exchange,” said Brad. “What drives the interaction is an exchange of value. As soon as the customer perceives that the value being offered is greater than the cost, there will be a natural urgency for the exchange.”

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference,” wrote Robert Frost in his famous poem “The Road Not Taken” in 1916. Our team at Fishbowl believes it is a metaphor for accepting accountability for our choices. We can remain optimistic through every breakdown or failure, learn and come back wiser and possibly even grateful for the experience.

“Life is difficult,” wrote Dr. M. Scott Peck in his bestseller The Road Less Traveled published in 1978. “This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

Frost and Dr. Peck make it clear that life is a journey and challenges are a given. Fast forward to 2015 and to a new generation of thought leaders and we learn that adversity in many experiences can be overcome with knowledge and viewing the situation from a different perspective.

We recently read The Laws of Influence by Brad Harker, a highly respected influence expert. He reminded us a lot of Dr. Peck. We liked his book so much that we connected with him to learn more.

 

Brad consults with professionals and organizations in the disciplines of sales, entrepreneurship and career development. With his entrepreneurial track record that includes a series of startups and more than a quarter billion dollars in sales, we were anxious to learn more about Brad’s theories on influence and the strategies he has introduced to his clients to help them reach incredible levels of personal and professional achievement.

Brad possesses more ambition, creativity and passion than we’ve seen in most experts. He has a unique ability to help others discover their purpose, amplify their strengths and leverage their potential.

Here are the four highlights from our discussion that helped our team and will hopefully help you overcome challenges and amplify success:

1. Everyone is in sales

Brad views selling as a function of influence. “Rooted in a distinct mindset, selling is in the way we think, act and communicate,” said Brad. “It is habitual. It’s not so much what we do or say, but how we do or say it. We all sell our ideas, beliefs, products or services every single day of our lives. No matter what our job title is, we are all active in the art of influence.”

Through his experience in sales and entrepreneurship, Brad has arrived at five conclusions:

  1. Selling or influencing others is an integral part of our daily experience, no matter what role we play in life.
  2. Our success in any endeavor depends on our ability to influence.
  3. We each have natural abilities that we can cultivate into habits of influence.
  4. By practicing these habits on a consistent basis, we can leverage the power of influence to reach our greatest potential.
  5. Once we have accepted the reality that we are always selling something, we can direct our attention to the most important sale we will ever face – ourselves. Our “pitch” to ourselves is that we each have unlimited potential and a unique capacity to realize our own version of greatness.

2. Align with your purpose

Brad believes that aligning with your purpose is the first step to build influence. He suggests that “each of us possesses unique traits and natural abilities, and our mission is to come into harmony with the gifts and talents that we have been given.”

We learned that Brad, in addition to his speaking and consulting activities, is an Adjunct Professor at Dixie State University. He thrives on the opportunity to help his students gain an awareness of their purpose and leverage their potential.

“Consider how much of your life you have spent acquiring an education,” said Brad. “It requires at least 16 years of school to earn an undergraduate degree! In all of that time spent learning, how much of that was spent on understanding exactly who you are? Education and experience are worthless if you don’t first understand who you are and what drives you.

“When you consider the statistic that 60% of Americans are unhappy with their occupation, it becomes apparent that the majority of us are not aligned with our purpose or, consequently, our potential.”

In the words of Mark Twain, “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.” If you follow our work at Fishbowl, you will know that we believe Twain got it half right. It’s what you do after figuring out the why that really matters, which leads to Brad’s next point…

 3. Focus on creating value

Brad recently created an online webinar series called Sales Primer that is designed to simplify the sales process for sales executives, professionals and entrepreneurs. In the first section Brad shares what he calls the exchange model.

The model simplifies the process of exchanging products and services. The model highlights the fact that the true medium of exchange is value, not necessarily money or the product. Brad has found that far too many professionals lead with their title or product, expecting success as a result of who they are or what they think is great about their product.

“The truth is that customers don’t typically care who you are or what you have to offer unless they can see that there is clear and obvious value being offered in the exchange,” said Brad. “What drives the interaction is an exchange of value. As soon as the customer perceives that the value being offered is greater than the cost, there will be a natural urgency for the exchange.”

4. Find success in the midst of adversity

Brad has overcome significant obstacles throughout his career. What is more compelling is how he has been able to harness that adversity to educate and motivate himself towards his goals.

“Mental response to rejection is a major differentiator between average and successful people,” said Brad. “Resilience” is the word he uses when describing the degree of fortitude people are able to show in the face of adversity. You may wonder how much resilience you have. Brad suggests, “It is important to understand that resilience is largely based on perceptions. From our youth, we have formed habits and meanings for the events we experience.”

Here is a relevant example Brad shared with us: consider how you have felt after experiencing a significant challenge, such as being fired from a job, benched during a game or intensely reprimanded.

For most of us, those experiences evoke emotions of discouragement, failure or severe depression. The reason is because we have been conditioned through our experiences to respond that way. “Fears, doubts and worries are perceptions of a reality that exists only in your mind,” Brad explained. He believes that our biggest weakness as humans is what often keeps us safe: our protective mechanisms.

Brad teaches a powerful approach to “reframe failure” that helps his clients embrace and learn from the adversity in their lives instead of shrinking in defeat and losing confidence.

He believes that we have two options in the face of adversity:

1. We can conform to it by allowing fear and insecurity to construct facades and walls that allow us to pretend that we are okay. In this conformity, we deprive ourselves of valuable education and strength.

2. Or we can humbly embrace failure as the great teacher and refining fire that has proliferated great men and women from the dawn of civilization.

We all face challenges in life. Reframe what holds you down into a learning opportunity and your success will be amplified. “We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived,” said Dr. Peck.

Learn more about Brad and his concepts here.

Additional reporting for this article provided by Mary Michelle Scott, Fishbowl President

 

Forbes.com | September 29, 2015 | David K. Williams