6 People You Need on Your Career Dream Team

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is it realistic to find one person encampassing all or at least five of these?
how will u know that the one u have is the right person

cate of KY 9:35AM March 25, 2010

Honestly, I'm not sure if it's realistic to expect any one person to be strong in more than a couple of these areas. Take a visionary nature and a pessimistic nature (even a positive pessimistic one), for example. If you're strong in one, you're almost by default not characterized by the other. The implementation specialist might go hand in hand with the positive pessimist, but it's less likely to combine with the visionary.
The emotional supporter, in my experience, is more likely to come via personal relationships than professional ones. And the subject matter expert and old hand? While it would be nice if one's boss had at least one of those, sadly, that seems to be a crap shoot. Possible, but not guaranteed.
Since it's unlikely that we'll find all of those wrapped up in any one person, let alone our boss, we're better off acknowledging where our boss' strength lies, and then looking for multiple individuals to fill the other needs.

Curt Rosengren of WA 5:49PM December 17, 2009

if most people had BOSSES infused with appropriate portions of these traits? Too bad most people don't. Lower and middle managers are generally chosen and given incentives to be something else entirely. How come?

Muser of NM 4:15PM December 17, 2009