Person-Oriented or Goal-Oriented on the Job?

There is no one right way or one wrong way to approach the work environment. In fact, different workplaces and company cultures tend to demand different skills and approaches. More complex work structures actually succeed by having a variety of individuals with different approaches. One way to consider how you approach you work is to discover whether you are person-oriented or goal-oriented on the job-whether you are a supervisor or a regular employee, understanding what motivates you and working to become more balanced, can make you a more effective employee.

Individuals who are person-oriented tend to strongly motivated to establish good working relationships with coworkers, supervisors and subordinates. These individuals often have very strong communication skills and care about the well-being of workers, the physical environment, and tend to take time to share information, teach and train. Those who are person-oriented may value group activities, meetings, moral-building opportunities and discussions to solve problems and make plans.

Those who are goal-oriented tend to be very focused on production. These individuals are interested in following rules and creating structures and systems to boost productivity and they tend to work best when they are focused on tangible, measurable objectives. This does not mean that they do not care about coworkers or other people, but they are not mainly motivated by human concerns. It is important to goal-oriented individuals that everyone is working in an organized fashion toward the very clear goals.

Of course, many people have some of BOTH of these motivation styles. It is not always true that a person who is person-oriented cannot also be goal-oriented. In fact, many workers and individuals balance the desire to have good working relationships with the desire to meet declared and shared company goals. Understanding where you fall in these categories and evaluating whether or not your motivational approach matches well with your work environment can be an important step in figuring out how effective you are on the job.

Understanding whether or not your coworkers, supervisors, and others are motivated by human relationship or tangible goals and structures can also help you in learning how to work best with different individuals. The more you know about what and why people are doing what they do at work, the more you can learn how both styles can work compatibly to get the job done.