The Cosmic Career Coach

Dear Cosmic Career Coach,

I'm a Leo, and I work on the creative side of the house at an ad agency in San Francisco. My boss is a Virgo. This is my first experience working with a Virgo, and based on her occasionally cold tone when I approach her with questions, I'm not sure if we're communicating well. My job is all about communication. Any tips for dealing with Virgos?

—Suspicious Sarah in San Francisco

Dear Suspicious Sarah,

As you know, Leos are all about developing a creative persona for themselves and building a reputation or image around their professional talents. Virgos, on the other hand, are all about optimizing and perfecting everyone else's work and could care less about owning the spotlight. So, at the outset, you and your Virgo boss have different motivations: You want fame, she wants efficiency. Thus your Virgo boss doesn't understand that you need strokes—beyond the most generic forms of praise—for your work.

You are probably accustomed to getting the back-patting you really need from your friends and loved ones who know you intimately. So, your Virgo boss may never seem warm enough to you—or she may give you an odd, amused look when you start going on in your charismatic way, as if waiting for you to finish your monologue. And chances are, she is oddly amused at you, but playfully so.

Where you and Virgo do have some overlap, however, is that you all both want to be "of service" to your clients and company. While Virgo expresses that desire by delivering "on-time and on-budget," you express it by giving "distinctive" special service that the client can't get elsewhere. You do this by making yourself unforgettably charming at client meetings and presentations, and generally delivering badly needed (in your opinion) jolts of enthusiasm into the proceedings.

Here's my recommendation, Sarah: When you communicate with your boss, use language that indicates that you want to do the best job possible, which means, for you, that you like to talk about the work both while it's in progress and when it's complete. Let her know you take personal pride in your job, and that for you to do your absolute best, you could use her feedback next time. If your Virgo boss understands that your requests for this kind of communication and contact stems from high standards (rather than a delicate ego, which you assuredly do not have), then she will make that task of adoring you part of her team routine—and she'll push you to do the ever-better job you promised from the outset.

Hot Careers For Leos

• Hospitality Management
• Marketing
• Physical Therapy Assistant

Dear Cosmic Career Coach,

I'm a Libra. I work as an office manager at a day spa. I like my work, but my boss (she's an Aries) told me during my last performance review that she'd like to see me take more initiative, as our location may expand hours and services, and I could play a bigger role if I want. I already go out of my way to cooperate and get along with all the staff. What more can I do to impress her?

—Jasmine, Lost in Los Angeles

Dear Lost Jasmine,

Ah, you gentle Libra. You're the sign of listening, cooperating and making nice. You're all about diplomacy. You're also the sign of doormats, codependency and taking half an hour to order a glass of chardonnay.

Here's the good news: Your Aries boss completely lacks your social skills, and she has recognized that you might be the perfect sidekick in the business. She's all brash wheeling-and-dealing, while you're the pleasant, calm face that greets the clients and keeps the joint (and employees) operating smoothly.

If you want to impress your boss, you can continue your innate polite approach. But you're going to have to learn to avoid that most-Libran of office traits: consensus-building and focus-grouping. When faced with a decision, Librans spend an inordinate amount of time taking feedback from others in order to arrive at a fair and representative decision that pleases the most people possible. While this tactic may satisfy your need for justice, it will only make your black-and-white Aries boss nod off if she has to watch you ask yet another esthetician or masseuse or janitor whether the lotion display looks better to the left or the right of the check-in counter.

Try this: Each day for a week or so, greet your boss with a "decision" you've made independently and run it past her briefly for her immediate "yes" or "no" answer. For instance: "Since summer is coming, I plan to order three extra cases of sunscreen. Is that OK?" Or this: "We've been marketing discounted services on Sunday, but it seems Wednesday is really our slow night. Should I call the ad agency and change the promotion?"

Your wording and tone should make it seem as if you've already made a decision, and that you need high-speed sign-off. Don't give her the impression that you are going to ask everyone who works at the company their opinion. Guaranteed: Your Aries boss will respond to your decisiveness—and she doesn't have to find out that you secretly focus-grouped the ideas before you ran them past her.

Hot Careers for Libras

• Marriage & Family Counseling
• Law Enforcement
• Medical Billing & Coding

About Jane Hodges, The Cosmic Career Coach Jane Hodges is a Seattle-based business writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, The Seattle Times, Seattle Magazine and many other publications. When she's not reporting on real estate or big business, she writes the "Seeing Stars" astrology column for Southwest Airlines' magazine, Spirit. She is also the author of Cosmic Grooves, a music and astrology book series (Chronicle Books/Rhino Records, 2001).