By Donna Shryer

Imagine this classified ad: Fast-paced advertising agency seeks Account Executive to manage Fortune 100 account. Being oldest child a plus; middle children need not apply.

As with many pseudo-philosophies, there are those who believe birth order significantly affects personality characteristics, which in turn can influence our career paths and management styles. Is it an exact science? No. But understanding the implications of birth order may present insight into your own personality as well as your co-workers', so you can couch suggestions, hire and manage, and ask for a raise more effectively.

Finding Common Ground

Research indicates that birth position in the family constellation-father, mother, firstborn, second, third, etc.-influences the way a child perceives life, shaping group interaction, sense of responsibility, creativity and expectations. Lifelong tendencies result, with those born in the same family position sharing traits.

Dr. Kevin Leman, psychologist and author of The New Birth Order Book (Fleming H. Revell Co., 1998), explains that birth order theory is based partly on science, but also on common sense. "There's not a firstborn who will read this article and disagree with the following statement: Mom or Dad came to you at some point and said, 'Listen, I don't care what your brother (or sister) did! You are the oldest. I expect more from you.' From the very start, we groom firstborns to be leaders," Leman says.

As for the middle child, Leman suggests that they're coached from the get-go to be entrepreneurs. They see the oldest getting all the glory and the youngest all the pampering, so to stand out, middle children become creative. "They walk to a different beat," Leman says. "Instead of going into the family business, middle children start their own companies."

The last born, Leman describes, is taught to please the crowd, so they tend to develop extraordinary people skills. "If you're looking for a top sales guy who can sell dead rats for a living, you better talk to the baby in the family," he says. "The baby is the one who learned how to manipulate."

Exceptions Make the Rules

Those who dispute the relevance of birth order, often comparing it to astrology, may be misinterpreting the subject as an ironclad formula. As Bob Bartholow, co-founder and professor at the Adler Graduate School in Minnesota, suggests, "Dr. Alfred Adler helped originate the study of birth order in 1923, but he had a caveat, which is that anything can be different."

Elements that make a difference include the critical-eyed parent, sibling sexes and age spreads, as well as having a special-needs or adopted child in the constellation. To naysayers, Leman says, "I've never seen a study factor in these variables. They look only at ordinal position, which distorts findings."

An example of such distortion is a family with one boy and one girl, which means that each child is the firstborn of their gender and each will exhibit firstborn characteristics. Another example might be a five-year gap between siblings, creating two families and making the youngest more an only child than the baby.

Positioned for Success

To better understand yourself as well as those you work with, here are common birth-order personality traits. Take them for what they are, though: general guidelines that don't reflect the myriad cultural differences, environmental influences and subtleties that make each of us unique.

First Things First: Firstborns are natural leaders, tending to be perfectionists, reliable and conventional. These traits combined make them unreceptive to rebellion or surprises. They also have an innate fear of being dethroned.

Professionally speaking, firstborns gravitate to professions requiring a high degree of precision, such as medicine, law, architecture or computer technology. More than half of all U.S. presidents were firstborns, and of the first 23 U.S. astronauts, 21 were firstborns and two were only children.

In the office, firstborns need to work on accepting possibilities. According to Bartholow, "The firstborn boss is conservative, and this might lead to missed opportunity."

If your boss is a firstborn, introduce ideas as suggestions rather than autocratic statements. Use phrases like "What do you think of this?" As Bartholow says, "You want to avoid coming off as a threat. And be prepared. Firstborns see open-ended ideas as rebellious."

Caught in the Middle: The middle child is often the opposite of the older sibling, and since the oldest is typically conventional, the middle is often rebellious. Feeling like the family's fifth wheel makes them loyal to supporters, competitive with opponents and very imaginative when it comes to getting attention.

Starting a company from scratch is appealing to the middle child's creative bent. Middle management is also a good fit, since these children often grow up refereeing sibling squabbles.

Contrary to firstborns, middle children should work on thinking things through due to their love of anything radical. Caution would be a good motto. Bartholow suggests that the second-born boss is most receptive when ideas are well thought out and presented in terms of success. "The key is to focus on creativity and potential!" he says.

Last but Not Least: The family's youngest child might often be described as an outgoing risk taker. Having spent a lifetime trying to rise up from the bottom, the "baby" will question authority, possess incredible ambition and often have a keen sense of humor.

Because of their need for attention, youngest children are drawn to the visual or literary arts, including entertainment, as well as people-pleasing fields, such as sales.

In the office, the last born might want to concentrate on being less sensitive to criticism and quell that fear of being passed over. "The youngest just wants to be counted, and this can color their judgment," Bartholow says. "When approaching a last-born boss, you do not want to sound threatening or hostile." (This is probably good advice for dealing with almost any boss!)

No birth position is better than another. What you want is a team with a mix. And while asking about birth order in the interview process could be construed as discriminatory, examining the differences could be an eye-opening team-building experience for your current staff. The key, as Leman explains it, is to let each employee's birth order work for the company. "What happens in business is you get this top sales person, probably a youngest, and someone decides that because this person's so great he should be promoted to general sales manager. The general sales manager, now here's someone who needs structure. Save the promotion for a firstborn, and let the baby do what he does best."