Career Development Strategies

Bill Gates was an intelligent entrepreneur and always believed that one can achieve anything by applying his intelligence. From childhood, he was ambitious and competitive and he wanted to do something that no one has ever done. This characteristic of Bill Gates justifies Trait-Factor theory of career development. His vision was legendary and unique as he dreamed about a computer on every desk and Microsoft software on every operating system. He decided not to stop until he could achieve his goals. This goal setting quality of Bill Gates can be compared with the Krumbolt’z Social Learning Theory of Career Choice (Lyness & Erkovan, 2016). Innovation was his primary tool and based on his innovative ideas and with the help of his childhood friend Allen, Bill Gates released a version of FORTRAN language for microcomputers in the year of 1977. On year later, Gates introduced a version of COBOL and emerged as a market leader. This innovative or artistic phenomenon of Bill Gates is similar to the Holland’s Career Typology Theory where artistic quality is considered as a unique and important quality of one’s personality (Lyness & Erkovan, 2016). Throughout his career, Bill Gates was also known as risk bearer as he never hesitated before dropping out of Harvard to devote his all the energies to Microsoft. Even after starting the company in 1975, he never stopped learning new things. By understanding the need for the people and demand of the market, he kept making changes in his organization, plans and services (Conklin et al., 2013). Super’s Life-Span Theory states that same as it believes that human change is continuous that depends on the experiences they face at various life stages. This theory is again relevant to Bill Gate’s career as he kept making changes and enhanced his approaches even when IBM pulled out of the contract for the operating system that was to be bundled with the IBM Clone PCs (Mitravich, 2015). Even after this huge loss, he stayed on and focused on creating better versions of Windows (Pryor & Bright, 2012). Bill Gates not only devoted his life in upgrading information technology but also contributed largely in social prosperities. He along with his wife Melinda Gates established Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the year of 2000 with an aim to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty. This social act of Bill can again be compared with Holland’s Career Typology Theory.

While discussing personal values, Bill Gates showed a great deal of creativity to bring change and variety in the world of information technology. With supreme honesty towards his fellow workers, he applied his knowledge and created Microsoft Corp. with an aim to provide personal computers to the people of the world (Whyte et al., 2012). That is the reason that I admire this person, as the traits followed by him are the same that I want to throughout my professional life. 

Richard Branson is famous for his characteristic that allows him to step outside his comfort zone into new industries to face unique challenges (Alter, 2014). His journey began when in the year of 1968 he started a student magazine, which was followed by the establishment of The Virgin Mail Order in the year of 1971. This approach of Richard is similar to what stated in Holland’s Career Typology theory of career development. In the year of 1981, he launched Virgin gaming organization and in 1984, he established Virgin Airlines, which shows that during different stages of his life, Richard experienced different roles. This phenomenon of his life is similar to the Super’s Life-Span Theory of career development (Mitravich, 2015). However, he did not stop after this and added more diversity to his business by adding Virgin radio station in 1993; Virgin Cola is 1994, Virgin bridal wear in 1996 and Virgin trains in 1997 with in the brand name of Virgin (virgin.com, 2014). This much diversity and innovation in one person is extremely rare and can be compared with Holland’s Career Typology Theory (Conklin et al., 2013). In spite of devoting, almost all his life to developing his business, Richard Branson never stepped back from social works. He always valued the importance of society and tried to contribute as much as he could to the same. Some examples are The Mia Farrow Pseudo Hunger Strike and The Trip around the world in a Balloon. This unique pattern of Richard to contribute to the society can be compared with the Trait-Factor theory of career development. He is also a visionary leader as he set a goal to not to pay taxes and that is why he successfully undercut the prices of well-developed retailers by avoiding the payment of purchase worth £500,000 in today’s money (Meijers et al., 2013). This goal-setting characteristic of Richard Branson is something that is mentioned in the Krumbolt’z Social Learning Theory of Career Choice.

From the above discussion on Richard Branson’s career, it is clear that throughout his life he was a follower of adventure, competition, entrepreneurialism and fun. Innovation was another phenomenon that allowed Richard to jump into various business industries one by one. One of his major personal values is flexibility in the workplace. In Netflix, the employees are allowed to take as many holidays as they want without providing any prior notice to the management (virgin.com, 2014). Richard introduced this idea, as he believes in influencing the employees by different types of motivational practices. This act of Richard supports the theory of Krumbolz’s Social Learning Theory of Career Choice. Richard, while doing his job with perfection also took proper care for his family. He always managed to take some time out of his family through delegations. He bought Necker Island in a bid only to impress his wife Joan during the time of their 40^th anniversary. That clearly indicates his attachment with his family, which allowed him maintain a work-life balance.

References

Alter, S. (2014). How to market like Richard Branson. Journal of Property Management, 79(6), 14-15.

Conklin, A. M., Dahling, J. J., & Garcia, P. A. (2013). Linking Affective Commitment, Career Self-Efficacy, and Outcome Expectations A Test of Social Cognitive Career Theory. Journal of Career Development, 40(1), 68-83.

Lyness, K. S., & Erkovan, H. E. (2016). The Changing Dynamics of Careers and the Work–Family Interface. The Oxford Handbook of Work and Family, 376.

Meijers, F., Kuijpers, M., & Gundy, C. (2013). The relationship between career competencies, career identity, motivation and quality of choice.International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 13(1), 47-66.

Mitravich, C. (2015). The Virgin Way: Everything I Know about Leadership.Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 20(1), 111.

Pryor, R. G., & Bright, J. E. (2012). The value of failing in career development: A chaos theory perspective. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 12(1), 67-79.

Whyte, R., Prideaux, B., & Sakata, H. (2012). The evolution of Virgin Australia from a low-cost carrier to a full-service airline-implications for the tourism industry. Advances in hospitality and leisure, 8, 215-231.