I've recently found a paper that reports the results of a huge meta-analysis of the predictors of career success. It's not hugely recent, having been published in 2005, but as the sample size goes up to 45,000, I think it's still worth thinking about!
It looked at both extrinsic and intrinsic career success. Extrinsic was defined as both salary and promotion, and intrinsic was measured by career satisfaction.
So, what did they find?
Well, if you're after promotion, then you should be feeling pretty smug if your MBTI profile includes the letters E and T, as extraversion and logic are both strong predictors of a promotion. But if you're not blessed with this personality type, then you can up your chances if you get loads of training and work long hours.
Now if it's a high salary you're after (and it's interesting to learn that these two aren't as closely linked as you might imagine - with a correlation of 0.18), your cognitive ability is key, along with your educational level, the number of hours you work, and the number of years of experience you've clocked up.
If you want to be happy at work (and again there is a significant but relatively small correlation between satisfaction and both salary and promotion), an extravert personality will stand you in good stead (nearly all work environments involve a substantial degree of social interaction which satisfies the more sociable amongst us). On top of this, the amount of training you get, support from your supervisor and organisation, the degree to which you have engaged in active career planning, and an internal locus of control are all likely to keep you chipper at work.
One interesting gender finding is that the link between education and success is stronger for women than for men. Make of that what you will!
I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that personality has such a strong link with these measures of success. I feel a bit uncomfortable about the notion that these are traits that we are born with, and that to some degree, your chances are limited or enhanced from an early age. And what do we, as coaches, do with this information? "I see you're an introvert, how very unfortunate...".
