Human Skills: Personality

A brief definition would be that personality is made up of the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that make a person unique. In addition to this, personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. 

Determinants of personality:

  • Genetic inheritance
  • Environmental factors
  • Physical factors
  • Situational factors

THE MYERS – BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR (MBTI)  

 Extraverted (E) v/s Introverted (I). Extraverted individuals are outgoing, sociable and assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy.  

 Sensing (S) v/s Intuitive (N). Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus on details. Institutive rely on unconscious processes and look at the “big picture.”  

 Thinking (T) v/s Feeling (F). Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems. Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions.  

 Judging (J) v/s Perceiving (P). Judging types want control and prefer their world to be ordered and structured. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous. 

THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY MODEL

 1. Extraversion: This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.  

 2. Agreeableness : This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, cooperative, warmth,  kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors. It refers to an individual’s propensity to  defer to others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm and trusting. People who  score low here, are cold, disagreeable and antagonistic.  

 3. Conscientiousness: Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be  responsible, organized and dependable and persistent. This dimension is a measure of  reliability.  

 4.Neuroticism: Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety,  moodiness, irritability, and sadness. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm,  self-confident and secure. Those with negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed  and insecure.  

 5. Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests. 

OTHER PERSONALITY TRAITS RELEVANT TO OB 

1. Locus of control

§People belong to two categories; Internals who believe that they are masters of their own fate and externals who believe that what happens to them in their lives is due to luck or chance. 

§Individuals who are raised in families in which effort and achievement are properly rewarded tend to become internals. On the other hand, individuals raised in families in which rewards seem to occur in a random manner tend to develop as externals. Thus, internals perceive a strong link between their effort and their performance.  

§They handle stressful situations better than externals. Externals are more compliant and willing to follow commands. They tend to do well in jobs that are well-structured and routine.

§Managers with high internal locus of control often adjust more readily to international assignments than do managers with a high external locus of control.  

2. Narcissism

§Narcissism is the tendency to be arrogant, sense of self-importance, require excessive admiration and have a sense of entitlement.

§People who have such personalities like to be the center of attention.

§They tend to be selfish and exploitive and believe others exists for their benefits. When it comes to helping others, they are rated very low. 

3. Risk Taking

§ This is again a very rarely found characteristics among people, but well known to all of us. There are people who have this ability and also the ability to take calculated risk.

§People differ in their willingness to take chances. High risk-taking managers make more rapid decisions and use less information against low-risk taking managers. Certain jobs such as being a broker in a stock market requires this ability in person to be successful.

4. Authoritarianism

§It is a belief that power and status differences should exist within the organization.

§Individuals high in authoritarianism tend to be fascinated with power and toughness, show respect to superiors having more authority, stick to traditional values & critically judge others.

§Due to their preferences to hierarchical order, authoritarian people often turn out to be good followers, work reasonably better and deliver results under a directive supervisor.  

 5. Machiavellianism- characterized by the acquisition of power and manipulation of the other people for purely personal gain. Niccolo Machiavelli proposed a ruthless strategy in early 1500 for seizing and holding political power. His approach was simple; other persons can be manipulated or used  for our purposes if we follow certain rules: 

(a) arrogance is far more effective when dealing with others

(b) powerful persons are free to lie, cheat and deceive wherever required to achieve personal goals

(c) it is better to be feared than loved. Those who want power should be willing to do whatever it takes to get his way.  

 (d) Type A and Type B Behaviour

Source: Google

e) Self-Esteem

§It is the quality not everyone can understand and possess it. People with high self-esteem like themselves and have overall high self-evaluation.

§Their presence and personality always inspires others to have confidence in them. They prefer in taking responsibility, are very positive and outgoing.

§On the other hand, people with low-self esteem do not have respect for themselves. They dislike themselves. They do not have confidence within themselves to inspire others. Generally, avoid taking any initiative, they are also very introvert and pessimistic towards life. 

f) Self- monitoring

These people are very alert to their surroundings and also sometimes termed as chameleons. 

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