Power Genes

We've all joked about it: the domineering father figure as top manager, boisterous elder brother-type as heir apparent, a caretaking mother hen or two somewhere on the executive team. But that leaves the rest of us in the workplace as a gaggle of siblings who battle for our "parents'" recognition, resources, and rewards. Next thing you know, you are doing exactly what you did back when you were a kid to get what you need from your colleagues trying too hard to please, acting up to get attention, or playing the brown-nosing game. It just doesn't work.

This book will help you kick these habits and use your power more effectively to advance your career and get what you want in the workplace. Career coach Maggie Craddock shows that by becoming aware of how these reflexes operate and how they grow out of your family relationships, you can recondition yourself to learn new responses and alternative actions to replace the old ineffectual behaviors. As you understand how others trigger you in public and private meetings, on conference calls, and in numerous forms of correspondence as well as how you trigger others, you will learn to stop yourself from such systematic self-sabotage.

Maggie's proven framework identifies four "power types" and the family systems that generate them, and then using stories from her clients shows the best ways to think about your interactions with peers, bosses, and direct reports of each power type. She then walks you through a reconditioning process that ensures that you wield your personal power effectively even when you have no time to think at all.