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A sustainable career is one in which individuals enjoy at least a moderate degree of productivity, health, and happiness across their lifespan. To elucidate what people might need to learn to enhance their career sustainability, we depict a wide range of typical career- and home-realm challenges. Being in learning mode is proposed as a self-regulatory meta-competency that shapes self-directed learning regarding how to tackle sustainable career challenges. People are in learning mode when they hold a growth mindset as they cycle through relevant approach, action, and reflection experiential learning processes. Given the relative stability yet plasticity of mindsets, we offer a dual-process model of mindsets that highlights how people may be nudged in and out of learning mode, both momentarily and over longer time frames. We outline implications for sustainable careers and mindsets theory and research, as well as practical implications for organizations, management education, vocational counseling and peer coaching, and those striving to forge a more sustainable career.

The substantial literature on dispositional antecedents of career success (e.g., extraversion and conscientiousness) implies that being low in career facilitating traits may hamper people’s careers. We develop a cognitive affective personality system (CAPS) theory about the role of situational cues, personality, and mindsets regarding the plasticity of one’s attributes in determining when this will occur and how the related dysfunctional dynamics may be mitigated. We draw on trait activation theory to describe how the interaction of situational cues, personality, and mindsets may trigger an array of cognitive-affective units (CAUs) within a CAPS that influence subjective and objective career outcomes. The contributions of this paper are to offer the largely between-person careers literature a within-person account of when and why people experience subjective and objective career success as a function of their personality, situational cues, prevailing mindset, and career context. A theoretical account of the relatively stronger prediction by personality of subjective than objective career outcomes is thereby provided. The scope to extend TAT by considering the cognitive and affective dynamics whereby personality traits and situational cues have their effects is illustrated. The conditions under which mindsets are likely to shape career outcomes are outlined. Finally, implications for mindsets, personality, and career theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Business school professors are under pressure. With students increasingly being viewed as customers who need to be “satisfied,” student evaluations are more and more consequential in determining contract renewal, tenure, and promotion decisions. Websites such as www.ratemyprofessors.com – enabling students to share unvarnished critiques of their instructors – up the ante. The proliferation of business school rankings taking account of “teaching quality” is creating a further institutional imperative for professors to strive to be stellar teachers, as well as top researchers. What are management instructors who want to improve their teaching to do?

In comparison to the vast literature on leadership theories, concepts, and behaviors, relatively less is known about why leaders often learn little from their leadership experiences, as well as how to support them in doing so. We propose that leaders learn more from their challenging leadership experiences when they are in learning mode, defined as intentionally framing and pursuing each element of the experiential learning process with more of a growth than a fixed mindset. We describe how the extent to which leaders are in learning mode stems from salient mindset cues and guides whether they work through the experiential learning process with a predominantly self-improvement or self-enhancement motive. We theorize about several other likely mediators and moderators of when being in learning mode will manifest in experiential leadership development. Practical implications at the micro, meso, and macro levels, as well as within management education are outlined.

This chapter provides an updated review and commentary on the empirical literature on individual difference antecedents of careers outcomes, before suggesting areas for future research. We focus primarily on the research conducted since Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller’s (2007) review of the Big Five, proactive personality, and core self-evaluations (CSE) predictors of career outcomes , as well as recent research developments on the following predictors that have garnered relatively intense research attention over the last decade: the dark triad traits, self-monitoring, and general mental ability (GMA). Before proceeding with that discussion, we briefly consider the nature of career success and underscore that individual differences represent a mere component of the constellation of factors that affect the career outcomes people experience.

Having a clear set of career goals and plans is useful during any stage of your career, though careers rarely unfold as intended or imagined. No matter how much people carefully plan their career, unexpected developments can bring unforeseen changes. Such developments may be initiated by factors within you, such as changing your aspirations, or by other events that you did not plan or expect, such as the fortuitous, unexpected opportunity or shocks that derail your progress along an intended career pathway. Most people will experience an unexpected event, or career shock, at some point in their career. This is why it is important for you to build your resilience and career adaptability – before the unforeseen happens. The focus of this article is on how you can build your capacity to respond to shocks so that you are both more resilient in the face of unexpected events and more able to proactively adapt to changes to your career options and goals. We first discuss common types of career shocks that people experience to help you anticipate the kinds of shocks you may encounter. We then discuss a range of psychological and behavioral strategies, as well as related practical tools, for preparing to be resilient in the face of career shocks, as well as for dealing with them adaptively – ideally even thriving in the midst of them – when they occur.

In this article, we explore the possibilities that may arise from conceptualizing your career success as an emergent process rather than as a cumulative outcome. Doing so is akin to focusing more on whether you are self-actualizing than on whether you have attained self-actualization. We discuss issues you might consider as you answer the overarching question: What would I do to have a more successful career if I thought about it as an emergent process? Specifically, we suggest you start by reflecting on your answers to the following questions: • Am I working in a role and organizational culture that feels right for me? • Have I seriously considered what career success means to me?• Am I being duly recognized and rewarded for my work? • Am I developing myself and my work roles in ways that benefit all concerned?• Am I engaged in mutually supportive relationships at work where I help and am helped by others?• Am I future-proofing my career by anticipating and preparing for career shocks I might encounter? • Do I have a good balance between my work and other aspects of my life? We describe some valuable career concepts and tools that you can apply to answer these questions, with a focus on those that are explained in more detail in the articles of this special issue on Enabling Career Success. We conclude with suggestions for applying the career development ideas that most resonate with you to enable both your career success, as well as the career success of others.