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I know a personality assessment hates to see me coming.
Give me a meaning-making system, and next thing you know, I’m burrito’d in my comforter, laptop on chest, on the 26th page of Google reading everything I can about my type.
And that’s just phase one. Ideally, phase two involves pressuring my loved ones to assess themselves so, together, we can mine the results for hidden treasures about Who We Truly Are.
This post is loving peer pressure. I want us all to get obsessed with career anchors. Nosily, I’m curious about the driving forces behind your career decisions. But this isn’t solely a selfish endeavor.
Knowing my own career anchors changed the way I think about what’s next. This concept helped me release a few career “shoulds” I didn’t realize I still had, and my hunch is there’s a realization here for you, too.
We’ll explore:
- The origin of career anchors
- The eight career anchors
- How you can work with the career anchors
The origin (and evolution!) of career anchors
Edgar Schein was the Willie Nelson of the organizational development space. He was in the game for 60 years, giving us chart-topping frameworks including humble inquiry, his organizational culture model, and, of course, the career anchors.
His work on career anchors started in the 70s when he wanted to understand what people thought was most important in their careers.
Schein’s initial research categorized their “basic values, motives, and needs” into five buckets. By the 80s, his research surfaced three more buckets, and there’ve been eight anchors ever since.
This wasn’t the only evolution in the career anchor universe. Schein originally thought that people had a singular, primary career anchor. Now we know we can have multiple primary career anchors.
Honestly, I don’t know if I’d be as into career anchors if not for that update. This framework isn’t about reducing you or your career aspirations into a single descriptor.
As I walk you through each anchor, notice which ones speak to your personal values.
Meet the career anchors
Autonomy and independence
The idea of someone telling you what to do makes you itchy. You prefer to work on your own terms. It’s quite possible you’re self-employed. And if you work for someone else, it’s important that your manager trusts you to determine the “how” of your projects.
Entrepreneurial creativity
You’re a builder. You see possibility everywhere, and you get a sense of satisfaction from turning your idea into a reality. Whether it’s scaling a business or starting up a new program in your workplace, you want ownership and growth in your work.
General managerial competence
Some people become managers to get a pay raise. You want to become a leader because you love working with people. Interpersonal dynamics are fun to you. You enjoy supporting people’s development and achieving outcomes through your team.
Lifestyle
You have a life outside of work, and you need a career that supports that. You take your PTO and your parental leave. Work brings some fulfillment (and cash!), but it isn’t everything. You have relationships and hobbies that must be savored.
Pure challenge
Your ears perk up when someone says, “Well, that just isn’t possible.” That phrase activates your pure challenge nature. Some people find power washing videos oddly satisfying. For you, few things are as satisfying as finding a solution that others were convinced didn’t exist.
Security and stability
You want a career where you know what to expect—as much as is possible in an ever-changing world. Risk is not your thing. You’re looking for steady paychecks, job security, and predictability in your work life.
Service and dedication to a cause
You work to make the world a better place, and, no, that doesn’t sound like a cliche to your ears. Living your values at and through your work is important to you. You can’t imagine spending most of your waking hours doing something that didn’t contribute to the greater good.
Technical or functional competence
You live for the moments when someone calls you an expert because you desire to be good at what you do. But it’s not like you expect yourself to be an overnight success. You’re willing to put in the thousands of hours it takes to achieve mastery.
Which anchors sound most like you?
Do a gut check first. Then you can take this free career anchors assessment to see where you land.
For those of you who know me, it won’t surprise you that my highest anchors are autonomy and independence, entrepreneurial creativity, and pure challenge. What can I say? I love to bring ideas to life.
And for my fellow nosy folks, my absolute lowest score was general managerial competence. No surprises there either. Having a low score doesn’t mean you’re bad at something. I’ve been told I’m a decent manager, but managing other people isn’t central to my idea of career success. I can take or leave it. And it’s good for me to know that about myself.
The career anchors give us language to voice our work-life desires. Then it’s up to us to do something with those insights.
Three ways to work with the career anchors
1. Do a gap analysis
Once you know your core career anchors, look for examples of each anchor in your career.
How do you know when an anchor is present? Maybe it’s a feeling you get or the way your calendar looks.
What happens when an anchor isn’t present? You might feel bored or disconnected.
And, most importantly, are you optimizing for your career anchors, or are you building your career around the anchors you feel you should have?
Let your answers lead you to an action step.
2. Make a decision
Many of my clients work with me because they’re asking, “What’s next?” Career anchors can help you answer that question. Whether you’re sorting through job descriptions or restructuring your business model, use your career anchors to point you in an aligned direction.
Don’t care about being a subject matter expert? Consider generalist roles. Feel bored when things are too easy? Find a way to build more pure challenge into your work.
Let the career anchors be your tie breaker when you’re deciding between two paths that look good on paper.
3. Define your career legacy
I’m not a big fan of five-year plans. Not enough room for surprise, delight, and mystery for my tastes. What I do love is knowing what I want to leave behind. I’ll shed a single, proud tear, if I can look back on my career and say, “I created tools and experiences that helped people get closer to what they really wanted.”
Career anchors can help you define your career legacy. Maybe your career legacy is that you did meaningful work while also throwing the most memorable parties for the people in your personal life. Maybe you were the leader with the golden touch. Every employee you worked with had a professional glow up. Maybe you were creative and persistent and were part of solving a world-changing problem.
Let your career anchors remind you what you’re working towards.
So, did I do it? Did I succeed in sparking a career anchor obsession? Let me know what clicked for you!
