Management: Career Success

Factors of Career Success

The renown German weekly magazine Wirtschaftswoche (“Business Week”) recently published an interesting article on career success. It was a compilation of factors that have an influence on job progress.

While some of the identified aspects are rather obvious (e.g. loyalty, physical height or academic degree), others were less evident and even surprising. In any case, all of the mentioned success factors were backed up by empirical or academic research to support the claim.

In an effort to shed some light on the typology of successful managers, here is a selection of the most interesting factors of career success:


Hair:
brown is the most attractive, red the least attractive colour; but even more important is the existence of hair, since baldness is seen as a sign of lacking career orientation

Sleep:
managers that sleep well and enough have an empirical higher rate of job promotion than those with little sleep

Voice:
a deep and low organ is perceived as pleasant and sympathetic, attributing sovereignty and competence to the bearer

Networks:
up to one third of the jobs in Europe are found on the basis of personal contacts and recommendations, and networkers have higher average incomes

Internet:
almost half of all managers actively shape and influence a positive online reputation – and many head hunters specifically search for this type of representation

Humour:
only 15% of all layoffs are caused by incompetence – all the rest is based on mal- or mis-communication, for which the lack of humour is seen as a clear indicator

Manners:
almost 90% of business leaders see a strong connection between personal success and good behaviour, which positively influences business results

Reputation:
according to an IBM study, only 10% of professional success is based on technical knowledge; of much higher importance are image (30%) and level of popularity (60%)

Some of the factors like sleep or hair appear rather unexpectedly and can safely be assumed as of minor significance. However, the importance of humour, reputation, networks and manners cannot certainly not be underestimated.

So in case one is wondering about personal hindrances for a progress in the job, the above mentioned factors for career success are certainly worthwhile to investigate a little further.



Andreas Hauser