Understanding Your Locus of Control

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diephosi

Are your successes and failures down to luck, or to your own choices and actions?

You and your colleague, Josh, are late for your morning meeting.

You blame yourself. You should have set an earlier morning alarm, taken a different route to the office to avoid the roadwork, and skipped your usual latte when you saw the long line at the counter.

"But these things happen," says Josh. "They always fix the road at the worst times. The guy at the coffee shop said they were short-staffed. How were we to know? Don't worry about it."

You and Josh are friends, but you disagree about who's responsible for your lateness. Why? Because you have a different "locus of control."

In this article, we'll examine what "locus of control" means and how it can affect your performance at work, your job satisfaction, your career prospects, and even your health.

What Is Locus of Control?

Psychologist Julian B. Rotter coined the term "locus of control" in 1954. It is the degree to which people believe that they are in control over the events in their life.

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