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What You Need to Succeed--and How to Find Out If You Have It
from Scientific American
Whether you succeed at work may depend on many factors--intelligence, empathy, self-control, talent and persistence, to name a few. But one determinant may outweigh many of these: how you perceive those around you. New research suggests that your own ability to get things done--not to mention your success in non-work relationships--is highly correlated with how you see others. Are your coworkers capable and kind, or are they, dare I say, incompetent jerks?
It turns out that such opinions are tied to a key component of achievement called psychological capital, a mixture of efficacy (self-confidence), resilience (you believe you can bounce back from setbacks), hope (you believe you can achieve your goals) and optimism (you expect good things to happen in the future). As a concept, psychological capital reflects our capacity to overcome obstacles and push ourselves to pursue our ambitions. Not surprisingly, scoring high on this measure is linked to markers of success: being promoted, winning awards, popularity with peers, stability of marriage and even longevity.
Given the power of this trait, psychologists--and employers--want to measure it. After all, a prospective employee with a lot of psychological capital is likely to do well on the job and thus, be a smart hire. Individuals might like to know how much of it they have. (I am curious about my own stockpile.) It is difficult to intuit, even if you think you know yourself fairly well, because you have little sense of how you compare with others.
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