Try discussing your answers to these questions with a friend. During your discussion, also explore these other areas of your personality.
- How do you handle aggressive energy? Do you channel it into the organization and administration of projects or do you bottle it up?
- How do you handle affection? Do you enjoy interacting with others or do you feel more comfortable keeping your distance? Can you express your emotions to others? (Thank them, praise them, and give them a pat on the back?)
- How to do you handle dependency? Can you make decisions or do you honestly prefer that someone else make them? Do you want to be in charge, be a team member or work independently?
You are asking yourself to start over, or at least, to enter uncharted territory.
After serious reflection, if you discover that you really don't want to leave the field in which you've been working to start a new career, you still have a number of other questions to answer,
- Where do you want to look (locale)? Are you willing to relocate? (Before you can answer that one honestly, you must discuss this thoroughly with your family, since their desires have to be considered in such a momentous decision. Especially now, with so many two-career families, the question of "where" becomes crucial to a successful job search.)
- What size company do you want to work for? Fortune 500, small business or industry, consulting firm, nonprofit organization, civil service or other governmental agency?
- Do you want to be an entrepreneur, to start your own business?
- Should you look for a management position, or are you willing to accept a lesser position if the long-term prospects look good?
- Are you willing to "settle," to accept almost any job, just so it is interesting and will last long enough for you to reach retirement age?
Matching Communication Styles and Jobs
When people plan their careers, they are generally attracted to job areas and professions which in some way match their communication styles.
As they advance in business, however, the job demands are different, and the ability to use different communication styles is needed. Managers succeed or fail on the basis of their ability to adapt, to match their communication styles to the requirements of their jobs.
In essence, this means that jobs, like people, have "personalities" and communications needs. The managerial positions you want and are qualified for demand that you make constant adjustments to your basic style. That's a "given" for success in managing people. You'll be happier-and better able to make the needed adjustments-if you understand whether you have a natural fit for the job (and must therefore make only minor adjustments in style) or whether you must constantly watch for situations where you'll have to make major adjustments in your style.
In the top part of the quadrant are positions requiring High D behaviors with a lesser measure of High I style. Over the line into the top of the I quadrant are the positions for which High I behavior, pushed by lesser amounts of High D, are helpful. These positions are frequently in the sales area. High I positions, which require some measure of supportive High S behavior, are shown in the bottom part of the sector. In the High S quadrant, the jobs shown at the top of the quadrant are High S jobs requiring occasional outgoing High I behaviors. The bottom of the segment shows the High S jobs that have a High C component-generally positions in which services are provided. At the top of the High C sector are positions requiring High C attention to detail along with some High S supportive behaviors. And finally, at the bottom of the C quadrant are those positions that require High C attention to detail, but also some assertiveness and overcoming of obstacles.
