Tom DeLong feels your pain. For much of his career, DeLong, the Morgan Stanley director of human capital turned Harvard Business School professor, has been teaching and advising hard chargers, a personality he calls the high need for achievement professional (HNAP). You know the type—the person in constant need of achievement and approval, the ones who keep metaphorical scorecards so they will always know how far ahead they are, the ones who can be painfully difficult to live or associate with unless it is on their terms. In other words, some of your partners, your clients, and, DeLong is pretty sure, the man or woman in some of your mirrors each morning.
DeLong isn’t judging you. He’s a recovering HNAP himself who spends a fair amount of his time teaching professional service firm partners about leadership. But he’s worried about what he sees. These HNAPs seem singularly unprepared to change their ways when the work environment around them takes unexpected turns. And, even facing minor setbacks, these goal-obsessed highfliers can find themselves in a sad state of anxiety, desperate to find some meaning in their badges of success.
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