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Where & What Type of Work

Where & What Type of Work

Different Strokes for Different Folks

What do you want out of your career? Do you look for security and stability, or does being exposed to constant challenges drive you? Do you want to manage people and resources, or does technology keep you excited?

Edgar Schein, widely acclaimed as one of the founders of the field of organisational psychology, suggests that every one of us has a particular orientation towards work and that we all approach our work with a certain set of priority and values. He calls this concept our ‘career anchors’.

Career anchors include talents, motives, values and attitudes which give stability and direction to a person’s career – it is the ‘motivator’ or ‘driver’ of that person. A career anchor is the one element in your self-concept that you will not give up, even in the face of difficult choices.

Schein claims that we have five primary anchors:

  • Technical and Functional Competence – what you would not give up is the opportunity to apply your skills in the area of technical/functional competence and develop those skills to a high level.
  • Managerial Competence – what you would not give up is the opportunity to climb to a high enough level in the organisation. You want to be responsible for total results; you seek challenging assignments and leadership opportunities.
  • Autonomy and Independence – what you would not give up is the opportunity to define your own work in your own way, in your own time, to your own standards. You would turn down opportunities for advancement in order to retain autonomy.
  • Security and Stability – what you would not give up is employment security. Your main concern is to achieve a sense of having succeeded so that you can relax; you are concerned about financial security and less concerned with work content and rank in the organisation.
  • Entrepreneurial Creativity – what you would not give up is the opportunity to create your own organisation or enterprise. You are restless by nature, constantly require new creative challenges and are willing to take risks and overcome obstacles.

Because career roles can allow for more than one anchor to be satisfied – for example, a manager in a secure and stable environment, it is quite possible for a person not to identify their one overriding anchor. However, when the anchor is missing from the mix – for example, a technically/functionally anchored person gains promotion to a management role and has lost the opportunity to satisfy their core anchor, people can still perform competently but will probably feel the real them is not being engaged and will feel less satisfied and less happy.

Identifying your core anchor and pursuing roles which allow this anchor to be satisfied will reward you with an enjoyable and successful career.

This article was written by the Careers Advisory Service at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. While it was originally developed for a New Zealand audience, we believe that graduates in Australia will also find the information within it relevant and useful.

Check out the excellent resources available on the Victoria University of Wellington's Careers Homepage

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