Leader or Worker?

I’ve been looking at various career paths, trying to work out the differing dimensions.  Through this I’ve identified four types of career, and I believe they all attract different personalities.  Recognising your own personality, and recognising the nature of the career you’re either in, or would like to be in, will greatly assist you in making better career choices.

Subscription Careers

I started my professional life in a subscription career.  I was a programmer, but I believe this category includes Accountants, Lawyers, Project Managers, Six Sigma Consultants, and a whole host of other choices.

Basically you’re racing up an escalator, but the escalator is moving backwards.  There’s other people racing you up parallel escalators.  The more you learn through training, qualifications, or experience, the further up your escalator you can get.  What’s at the top of the escalator though?  Is there even a top?

So I started working as a programmer, writing stuff in C – it had already been around for years then.  There were thousands of other people who could programme in C though – and next year out of university there’d be thousands more.  Other styles of computer programming were becoming more popular too – Java, C++ for example.  Now we have Objective C.  There’s always something new.  It’s very difficult to get ahead in this market since there’s always new market entrants with newer skills than yours – so you need to keep up to date.  You’re not in control of the top of the escalator though – there’s other forces placing extra steps at the top… think you’ll ever get there?

Labour Careers

The ‘honest days wage for an honest days work’.  The more I put in the more I get out.  Within limits of course.  My willingness to work hard is my competitive advantage.  I’m thinking Consultants, Personal Assistants, Photographers (well, some of them), Live Musicians, that kind of thing.

Leveraged Careers

These guys are smart.  The amount of work they have to do is fixed, but if they can bet well, their work will go further.  Investment bankers raise your hands.  This is your domain – but not exclusively.  Authors and recording musicians can raise their hands too for example.  The effort to create your work is relatively fixed – but it is a bet, you are betting that your choice of investment, or your book, or your CD will be the profitable.  The reward will be proportional to how good your bet was.

People Careers

These are the movers, and shakers, and the people who get things done.  They don’t really ‘do’ anything per se, but they mobilise the people who chose the careers above and build companies.  Or they rise within a large corporation because they are agents of change (positive of course) and are able to achieve things that are extraordinary.

Conclusion

Know yourself, know your career, make sure they match.