Overview

Dynamic of Careers today

The term 'career' means different things to different people. For companies, it has therefore become more and more difficult to find a way of managing the multitude of careers of their employees. In result, the days of a standard model of career progression are gone.

As a recent Center for Creative Leadership survey (www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/NatureLeadership.pdf) has shown, careers are not made because of one's inherited status, organizational tenure, or functional expertise. The study of 398 leaders provides the result that the basis for a leaders' career is becoming less clearly defined.

But what actually means career success today? And why do some leaders progress faster than others? Are these people happier with their careers? Importantly, what are the new challenges leaders are faced with and how do they address them? To find answers to these questions, the Center for Creative Leadership has set up a new study exploring the dynamics of careers various countries across Europe.

The study "Leadership Careers in the 21st Century"

The study about "Leadership Careers in the 21st Century" aims to identify communalities and differences between leaders' career development in different cultural contexts. To grain a deep understanding of the complexity of career influences, we focus on an array of themes impacting career development and career success (e. g. career facilitators, obstacles and trade-offs with other areas of life). The data are being collected to address the following questions:

• How do leaders advance in organizations - what are the external and internal influences that enable some leaders to advance faster than others?
• What challenges have leaders faced in their careers and how did they overcome them?
• How do career-oriented leaders integrate their work life and private life?

For this, our research team has collected data from mid-level and senior leaders from five different countries: the Netherlands, Russia, Norway, Spain and Turkey.