Where do I belong as a person?
To develop yourself, you have to be doing the right work in the right kind of organization. The basic question is: “Where do I belong as a person?” This requires understanding what kind of work environment you need to do your best: A big organization or a small one? Working with people or alone? In situations of uncertainty or not? Under pressures of deadlines?
If the thoughtful answer to the question “Where do I belong?” is that you don’t belong where you currently work, the next question is why? Is it because you can’t accept the values of the organization? Is the organization corrupt? That will certainly damage you, because you become cynical and contemptuous of yourself if you find yourself in a situation where the values are incompatible with your own. Or you might find yourself working for a boss who corrupts because he’s a politician or because he’s concerned only with his career. Or—most tricky of all—a boss whom you admire fails in the crucial duty of a boss: to support, foster, and promote capable subordinates. The right decision is to quit if you are in the wrong place, if it is basically corrupt, or if your performance is not being recognized.
ACTION POINT: Are you in the right organization? Why or why not? If not, should you quit?
Managing the Non-Profit Organization
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker