career leader report

This section contains the most important issues for you to consider as you explore different careers. These issues are likely to determine how happy and successful you are in your career.

Interests
You have a notable interest in two core elements of business work:
Influence Through Language and Ideas
Quantitative Analysis

You're extremely interested in Influence through Language and Ideas, one of the core activities business work. You enjoy writing and/or talking to people -- with the specific goal of gaining their agreement on a particular topic.

You enjoy work that gives you opportunities to persuade someone to buy something, to support an initiative, or to contribute resources to a project.

You may have a preference for:
persuading people through written communication rather than in person
talking to people individually making presentations to large groups engaging in short-term, quick interactions building long-term relationships.

But regardless of these preferences, you enjoy bringing people around to your point of view.

Clearly sales and relationship management are natural fits for someone with this interest, but you can express it through virtually any business career path. For example, deal-oriented financial services positions may also appeal strongly to you (if you also have an interest and some skill in Quantitative Analysis).

You are also very interested in Quantitative Analysis, one of the essential activities in business work. You enjoy using mathematical analysis to solve problems. Whether you work as a manager, executive, consultant, or in any other role, you'll be drawn to the "numbers side" of the business. Business professionals with a strong interest in this area often gravitate toward financial roles, whether as finance professionals in an operating company or in some aspect of financial services. You may be attracted to businesses (such as financial services, management consulting, and accounting) in which top-notch quantitative analysis directly drives the company's success. However, quantitative analysis can take many forms (e.g., everything from market research analysis and supply chain management to compensation and benefits consulting and research analysis).

You're likely to enjoy work activities such as:
performing cash-flow analyses
analyzing the future performance of an investment instrument
determining the optimal debt-to-equity structure for a company
discovering what a firm's balance sheet reveals about the company's current financial status interpreting the spreadsheets behind a market analysis analyzing market research building a computer model to determine optimal inventory planning deciding whether the assumptions behind a business plan or sales forecast make sense

If you eventually move into a management role, you are likely to be attracted to industries in which Quantitative Analysis plays a dominant role. Or perhaps you'll become a manager who always bases decisions on hard data and empirical analysis.

Of course, having strong interests in Influence Through Language and Ideas and Quantitative Analysis doesn't necessarily mean you have the skills you need to succeed in a career in which those activities are a predominant part of the work. But people often develop abilities where their interests lie. So don't let a lack of training or prior experience with influencing others or with quantitative analysis keep you from gaining the knowledge or strengthening the skills you'll need to express these interests.
Your interests strongly resemble the interests of entrepreneurs that distinguish them from other business professionals. This doesn't necessarily mean that an entrepreneurial venture you're involved with will succeed. Nor does it mean that you should run right out and start a new business. However, it does suggest that you would be happiest in an organization (or in part of a larger organization) that has a decidedly entrepreneurial culture -- even if you aren't the founder. (Many CEOs of entrepreneurial companies didn't set up those companies, but they are most definitely entrepreneurs.)

Remember: there is no such thing as one "entrepreneurial type;" different entrepreneurs exhibit different styles in leading their organizations.
Your interests are the single most important factor in your happinessand success.
Organizational CultureYou would feel most comfortable in a culture characterized by immediacy and spontaneity. In such organizations, departments, and teams, people value getting things done -- now -- over precision and perfection. A group whose work requires taking immediate action based on limited information (the trading floor of a commodities exchange, for example) would have this culture. Groups that do a lot of their work on deadline, without time to dot all the "i's" and cross all the "t's," will likely embody strong elements of this culture as well. The creative area of an advertising firm might be one example. Your tendency in this regard is very strong, so pay close attention to this aspect of any organization you consider working for. For tips on how to examine an organizational culture in this regard, click here.
You would feel most comfortable in an organization that places a premium on trying new approaches: "If it isn't broken, see if you can make it better anyway." People who work in such companies, departments, or teams are willing to take risks in the service of possible improvements. They're intellectually venturesome and greatly appreciate new ideas and creativity. These are typically relatively "flat" organizations, where a person's job title matters far less than the quality of his or her ideas. Your tendency in this direction is relatively strong, so pay close attention to this aspect of any organization you consider working for.

Abilities
You have a number of strengths, including:
Ability to Teach: clear and patient when explaining things; a good teacher.
Assertiveness: able to defend a point of view and to confront others appropriately when necessary.
Comfort with Risk: takes risks when appropriate, isn't afraid to innovate and experiment.
Creative Thinking: able to think creatively, generating new ideas and approaches to situations.
Critical Thinking: able to think critically (define a problem and determine the information needed to solve it; understand unspoken assumptions; form and test hypotheses; and judge the validity of conclusions).
Decisiveness: able to make decisions even in ambiguous situations and without full information.
Empathy Skills: can see things from other people's points of view.
Flexibility: adapts easily to changing situations and is able to adopt new approaches when necessary.
Leadership: comfortable taking a leadership role.
Persistence: doesn't get discouraged and give up on things easily.
Political Skill: knows how to get things done within the political framework of an organization.
Recognition of Opportunity: recognizes new opportunities and acts to take advantage of them.
Resilience: handles pressure and stress well.
Sensitivity and Tact: sensitive and tacful: promotes an atmosphere of good feeling and mutual consideration.
Teamwork: a team player: cooperative, works well as part of a group.
Written Communication: a good writer, expresses ideas and positions clearly.
You also recognize some weaknesses in your business skill set:
Gaining Trust: inspires other people's trust.
Listening Skills: listens to other people in a way that they feel understood.
Openness to Criticism: accepts critical feedback without becoming defensive.
Oral Communication: a skillful public speaker, good at presenting ideas and plans in a persuasive manner.
Power-orientation: comfortable asserting authority and using power.
Time Management: manages own time well.
One or more of these weaknesses might stand in the way of your career success.
Motivators (i.e. Work Reward Values)
You place a very high value on these rewards:
Financial Gain (the position provides opportunity for exceptional financial reward)
Intellectual Challenge (the position offers consistent intellectual challenge)
Positioning (the position offers experience and access to people and opportunities that will position me well for my next career move)
These are your most powerful motivators in work situations. You won't be happy for long if you find yourself employed in a position where you can't earn these rewards. Likewise, you'll want to avoid reporting to a manager who won't provide you with opportunities to earn these rewards.
You're also motivated by:
Lifestyle (the position allows ample time to pursue other important aspects of my lifestyle -- family, leisure activities, etc.)
Prestige (the position is with an organization that is prestigious in its field)
Variety (the position offers a great deal of variety in the nature of the work performed)
These are significant motivators for you. However, you may be willing to trade one or more of them for something else that a particular work opportunity offers (such as a desirable geographic location).
Finding the right organizational culture is about more than being happy. It can determine whether you succeed or fail.
Things to Be Alert For -- On the Job and In a Job SearchYour assessment indicates that you are creative, curious, and open to new experiences and ideas. You question "conventional wisdom," and perhaps you're even a bit unconventional yourself. These qualities are great assets -- but will do little to help you succeed if you don't use them to generate practical results. In your work, you may need to force yourself to get things done, rather than spend all your time coming up with new ideas.
You prefer working on projects of fairly short duration. For you, staying engaged over the long term is a lot tougher and less enjoyable than the creative phase at the beginning of projects. You may also have difficulty paying attention to detail. If you're working on something that's less than fascinating to you, you'll need to discipline yourself to stay focused and organized.
At work and in other areas of your life you may try to keep your options open beyond the time when that's advisable, or even possible. If so, force yourself to stick to deadlines, and set "mini-deadlines" along the way to ensure steady progress toward your goal.
During job interviews, make sure to provide examples of work you've done that generated useful and measurable results. You don't need to worry about your creativity coming through during an interview. But you do need to demonstrate that you can turn that creativity into something valuable for his or her organization.
You probably tend to embrace new ideas too willingly, without testing their merit first. Make sure you aren't blinded to possible flaws just because you enjoy the novelty of a new idea. And take care not to jump to conclusions or to let your enthusiasm for a new idea get you too far ahead of people when discussing it. Although you may feel entirely comfortable with new ideas, remember that other people may want to think things through more deliberately than you do.
You work hard to come up with good ideas, and probably do it quite well, but may not try hard enough to ensure that your ideas are adopted. If this describes you, you need to force yourself to learn how power and influence work in the business world, and to use them. Otherwise, your good ideas and hard work won't have the impact they could have had.
One final caution: a lack of interest in the practical details and less-inspiring aspects of implementing plans presents a real danger to career success. This is especially true early in your career, when executing ideas is a key part of the job. It's likely to require discipline and organization on your part to overcome that lack of interest. Having good ideas is necessary -- but by no means sufficient -- to succeed in business!