Table of Contents
Introduction
The word “Personality” originates from a Latin word “Persona.” which means a mask. The mask was just a conventional device to specify a certain character or behavior. In the old days personality was the out wide appearance of a person.
There are several scholars who have defined personality in different ways but they all focus of the pattern of behaviors and individual characteristics that can help explain and predict someone’s behavior.
Personality can be explained while focusing on Nature and Nurture. Nature is all about inherent characters that are genetically determined, while Nurture is the influence the environment has on an individual. This is all about parenting and Culture that contribute to individual’s personality.
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Personality is “The distinctive patterns of behavior (including thoughts and well as ‘affects’, that is feelings, and emotions and actions) that characterize each individual enduringly.” Walter Mischel, 1999
“Personality refers to individuals’ characteristic patterns of though, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanism – hidden or not – behind those patterns.” Funder, 2001
“Although no single definition is acceptable to all personality theorists, we can say that personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior.” Feist and Feist, 2009
Personality differentiates one person from another since people do act in a particular manner differently as a result of nature and the environment one has been raised in.These actions or rather characters are persistent hence lading into personality, if no persistence then they are not considered as part of individuals personality
Organization
Louis Allen, “Organization is the process of identifying and grouping work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives.”
Koontz and O’Donnell, ‘The establishment of authority relationships with provision for co-ordination between them, both vertically and horizontally in the enterprise structure.”
Manager
Oxford English living dictionary has defined a Manager as A person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff.
Factors that Give shape to Personality
There are several factors that give shape to the personality of an individual among those are the following;
- Inherited Characteristics – Inherent qualities transmitted from ancestors to descendants through genes. Such qualities include Physical
Stature, Facial attractiveness, reflexes, Shape of earlobes and others. - Physical features – Individuals external appearance have a considerable effect to hisor her personality. A good physical appearance is an asset for sales work force also public relations officers.
- Family and Social Factors – Individuals development is influences by his family also Social groups hence shaping that individual’s personality.
- Situation – Certain generalizations can be made about personality but there are significant individual differences which are further influenced by situational factors.
Major Personality Traits
Personality traits are the enduring features that define an individual’s behavior. Since personality traits are developing while being influenced by nature and nurture, each individual do develop some characters that make him unique hence exhibit unique behavior or reactions when subjected to different situations.
The five factors Goldberg identified as primary factors (OCEAN) of personality are;
Opennes (Open)
Individuals with high rates in openness to experience are known for having a broad range of interests and vivid imaginations. They exhibit curiousness, creativity, and they are no rigid instead they prefer a variety of routine to capitalize available options.
Conscentiousness (Conscientious)
Individuals ranking high in this trait are efficient, well-organized, dependable, and self-sufficient. Their preference is to plan in advance while aiming higher. Other traits include resourcefulness, Reliable, hardworking, Energetic and persevering.
Some people who rank lower in this trait may see those with higher conscientiousness as stubborn as they will be pushing for things to happen
Extraversion (Extrovert)
Individuals who rank high in extroversion gain energy from social activity. These are talkative, outgoing, and comfortable in the spotlight, but others perceive them as attention seekers.
Agreeableness (Agreeable)
Individuals who rank high in this trait are trustworthy, kind, and affectionate toward others. People who are high in agreeableness tend to be more cooperative while those low in this trait tend to be more competitive and sometimes even manipulative.
Neuroticism (Neurotic)
Individuals under this trait experience a high degree of emotional instability. Individuals who are high in this trait tend to experience mood swings, anxiety, irritability, and sadness. Those high in neuroticism are generally given to anxiety, sadness, worry, and low self-esteem.
Personality Orientation
Organization Behavior is influenced by the following personalities;
Achievement Orientation
Achievement orientation of an individual also indicates the personality of an individual. Individuals may aim to achieve high or low. Those aiming to achieve high always display a very dominant personality with ambitious targets, hard work while fixing goals at higher levels while striving to achieve them.
While those who aim low they do not set high target and are satisfied with the achievement they do get. They prefer to take tasks of intermediate nature while feeling that they are above the normal individual. People with high achievement orientation are found to be good organizers, efficient managers, and sports person.
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is related with status and power in the sense that there is power and status difference between various individuals within the organization.
Theory of Machiavellianism
Niccolo Machiavelli introduced theory of Machiavellianism. The theory refers to degree to which an individual is pragmatic and maintains emotional distance with co-workers while accomplishing any task. A person who practices this theory believes in “end justifies means.”
In any organization people can be classified as having high Machiavellianism or low Machivellianism tendencies. A person having High Machiavellianism (H Mach) generally displays variety of personality traits like manipulation, win more, persuade others to do a work while they do not get persuaded by others.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem refers to individuals’ degree of liking or disliking himself. People’s self-esteem has to do with their self-perceived competence and self-image. Most recent studies indicate that self-esteem plays an important moderating role in areas such as emotional and behavioral responses and stress of organizational members.
Self-Monitoring
This quality displays high degree of adaptability and high sensitivity of an individual due to changing situation where and individual will be subjected at different times. A person possessing self-monitoring trait is likely to behave differently in different situation.
Risk Taking
Risk taking trait is commonly seen in various entrepreneurs. They display rapid decision making ability.
Utility of the Knowledge on Personality to Managers
There are several reasons for Managers to be well acquainted with employee’s personalities for them to achieve organizational goals and objectives, among those they include;
- It helps Managers to motivate employees
Personality gives a manager clues as to what an individual likes mots also the reaction of that individual to particular task that will be assigned to him or her. Some employees are motivated by piece work while others are motivated by group work and on the other side some individuals feel shy to talk to people or customers but are good when assigned a task that they will not meet customers.
- It can reduce employee turn over
Assigning individual’s tasks they like most, shall reduce employee turnover as they will be doing tasks they love to do.
- It can reduce conflicts and improve collaboration.
Understanding individual’s personality shall allow the manager to align the team properly. This shall reduce conflicts since various situations that results into individual reactions shall be taken into consideration hence reduce conflicts.
When personalities clash, it can cause a ripple effect of destruction in the organization.
- It can prevent burnouts
Managers understanding on individual’s reactions to various situation shall enable taking corrective measures to reduce stress and irritating situations that do cause burn outs as a result improve performance.
- It Can help the manager to effectively communicate with the work force.
Effective communication is when the sender of the message knows well the target audience. The message itself may be destructive or a motivation to employees.
Personality Approaches
Nomothetic Approach
The term comes from the Greek word “nomos” which means law. Look for universal laws of behavior.
The nomothetic approach is a measurable and specific perspective that looks at the identification of traits and personality as a collection of characteristics. These characteristics are ones that can be described, identified and measured, and therefore can be subjected to observation and tests. This perspective is especially helpful for managers when they are involved in the selection, training and development of individuals. Nomothetic approaches tend to view environmental and social influences as minimal and view personality as consistent, largely inherited and resistant to change. Although they would not diminish the difficulties that measuring personality brings, nomothetic approaches would claim that it is possible to measure and predict the ways in which personality types would behave, given certain circumstances.
Nomothetic researchers closely align themselves to studies that are ‘scientific’ in a positivistic sense. (The term ‘positivism’ refers to the branch of science that is exclusively based on the objective collection of observable data – data that are beyond question.) Such an approach transfers methods used in natural sciences to the social world. Some psychologists are interested in describing and measuring characteristics and comparing individuals’ scores. Does this person exhibit more or less than ‘average’ of this particular trait? Being able to predict behavior is a major aim and outcome of this approach.
Idiographic Approach
The idiographic approach is a holistic and dynamic perspective that insists that managers take into account a ‘whole’ understanding of the individual at work. This may also require going beyond the study of pure psychology to an understanding of the societal context in which the person lives. These are called idiographic approaches and are particularly pertinent in understanding motivation, career development and team relationships.
Idiographic approaches are concerned with understanding the uniqueness of individuals and the development of the self-concept. They regard personality development as a process that is open to change. They regard individuals as responding to the environment and people around them and see the dynamics of the interactions as playing a critical part in shaping personality. The measurement of traits is seen as largely inappropriate, in that one person’s responses may not be comparable with another’s. They suggest that personality assessment is not a valid method of understanding the unique ways in which a person understands and responds to the world. The depth and richness of a person’s personality cannot be revealed in superficial paper-and-pencil questionnaires. Furthermore, the categories defined by psychologists are too narrow in scope and depth.
Conclusive Remarks
It is difficult to identify ones personality because individual behavior is complex and construct multidimensional. Personality of a human being can be determined by identifying stable characteristics of an individual. Personality can be influenced by environmental factors and situation under which an individual is working. Heredity has an influence on individual’s physical appearance, facial attractiveness, sex, temperament and reflects. These factors have deciding influence on individual behavior in the organization. Individual behavior is shaped as per the environment he is brought up. Cultural background, socioeconomic conditions parents profession are some of the factors responsible for individual personality.
As managers are key to achieving organizations Mission and Vision through implementing strategic objective through their subordinates, they must understand individual personality form better job placement also day today interaction of the team. As managers you may assign someone clerical works while he is s marketer on the contrary you can assign a clerical worker to be a marketer and you find that things are not moving.
Times where managers were just authoritarian individuals with employee’s obeying are gone; understanding the complex individuals’ consistent reaction to different situations is paramount for organizations success.
