The Relationship between Personality and Leadership - Report Example

Student’s Name Your Instructor’s name The Course Date Organizational Behavior Introduction Studying organizational behavior (OB) is an exciting as well as challenging process. There is a connection between groups of people and individuals working as teams. In every workplace, it is hard to find two individuals behaving in the same way. Organizational behavior can also be termed as a manager’s predictability on the human behavior. Organizational managers ought to explain, foresee, assess, and modify human behavior, which will greatly depend on the managers’ skill, knowledge, and experience in managing many diverse groups of people. Organizational behavior comprises of various aspects and principles that include personality, employee performance, leadership, teams and groups, structure, perception, job design, change management, stress and conflict management, organizational culture, politics and power, and development among others. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore some of these aspects, specifically personality, leadership, and structure, as well as their interrelatedness towards the performance of the organization. Background information According to (Ashraf 155), managing or running a work place entails some fundamental principles of organizational that managers should consider and abide by in the performance of different functions. For instance, such an organization comprises of staff members that need effective training, motivation, satisfaction, and communication. In this case, the paper focuses on the organizational behavior of a university, Griffith University. Because managing a learning environment is a managerial responsibility, it is necessary for its managers to understand some principles to manage the organization efficiently. OB entails the study of group and individual dynamics in an organizational environment, and the organizations’ nature. Whenever there is an interaction among different people in an organization, there is a possibility of various factors coming into play. Ashraf (155) asserts that OB is emerging as a vital subject as people with distinct cultural values and backgrounds have to function together efficiently and effectively. OB aims to focus on the understanding of organizational behavior to develop competencies in predicting how individuals are probable to behave. This knowledge might then aid in controlling those behaviors that are unsuitable for the organizational objectives. Factors, such as, replicability, objectivity, and sustainability are crucial in the selection of techniques of this purpose. Interviews, questionnaire, stimulation, and survey are generally useful in the eliciting of individual responses situated in various kinds of organizations. To a great degree, their personalities influence the nature of their answers. Personality Understanding the aspect of personality is critical in the knowledge of individual behavior in an organization. Personality involves some characteristics, qualities, and competencies of people along with particular other traits, such as, attitude and grooming. Personality implies very particular behavioral patterns of a person in a defined circumstance (Ashraf 155). Nevertheless, there are consistent features, which always come out in an individual upon which there is formation of inferences. For instance, there are submissive, dominant, politeness and aggressiveness. Besides, personality involves organizational feelings, cognitions, thoughts, and visible behavior. Nevertheless, particular behavioral patterns are invisible and proper testing must occur to know (Moss and Ngu 70). In terms of measuring personality, individual’s personality is indispensable in the shaping of a firm. Here, there are various techniques used in the measuring individual personalities. Some of these methods include assessment centre, projective tests, and personality inventories. To start with, Personality Inventories is a commonly used technique essential in the measurement of personality. This technique comprises of many statements connected to particular personality dimensions in which there are questions to people concerning their extent of disagreement or agreement. This usually happens by asking both positively and negatively statements on particular general themes (Ashraf 157). Another technique involves projective tests, which aim at investigating more complicated and difficult individual personality aspects. The supposition is that measurement of the inactive feelings, fantasies, hopes, and aspirations can take place to evaluate personality. These tests also comprise of ten pictures, one half is similar to the other half. These are unstructured, ambiguous, inkblots and people explain what in on the pictures (Ashraf 158). Still on projective method, Ashraf (158) maintains that there is a thematic appreciation method, which has 20 pictures representing a social environment. These pictures offer a relatively defined circumstances and people should write about what they think is happening in the social scene. The third method used in personality measurement is the Assessment Centre. This test has various methods necessary for the evaluation of personality of workers in organizations. This can also involve management problems, situation tests, in-basket exercises, memo and letter writing, and business plan presentations. Then, there are behavior categories to assess the performance on the main result areas. The test also evaluates dimensions like career ambition, sensitivity, independence, and integrity among others (Alkahtani, Ali, Abu-Jarad, Sulaiman, and Davoud 73). OB strategies aim at utilizing groups and individuals’ abilities towards attaining organizational goals. An individual’s performance is a function of her or his ability and desire or desire to apply one’s ability to attain certain goals. Nevertheless, it is vital that there is a sufficient motivation of the staff to fulfill these goals. Once an organizational manager knows the personality traits of individual employees, she or may employ diverse techniques of motivation (Ashraf 159). Leadership Leadership entails the leading process, leading concept, and entities performing one or more leading activities. Generally, leadership can be potential or actual; hence, there are actual and potential leaders in the society. Actual leaders are those that provide direction or guidance, while potential leaders are capable of leading. Leadership may have an official aspect like in most business or political leadership, or unofficial one like in many friendships. Besides, leadership can also mean the entities that leading have certain leadership competencies or skills. Many kinds of leaders can exhibit leadership, potential, or actual. Leadership also comes out when a leader contrives to obtain deference from other leaders who are followers. Obtaining deference can get competitive that the arising leader draws followers from alternative or prior leaders (Ashraf 161). In a democratic nation, people preserve sovereignty, but entrust daily leadership and administration to elected representatives. Perceived or competence offers a potential foundation for choosing leadership elites from a wider assortment of prospective talents. Although political lobbying can prove essential in electoral systems, indicated character and skill can protect leadership in smaller groups. Several groups and organizations aim to foster, identify, and improve what they see as leadership ability, particularly among younger social members. Matters about leader legitimating or succession planning are significant when leadership can or should change because of accident, term-expiry, or senescence (Ashraf 161). In terms of leadership scope, Ashraf (162) asserts that an individual may govern himself, or may rule the world. Leaders can function primarily in bands, families, nations, tribes, empires, or states. Besides, there are religious leaders, work-place leaders, or those from voluntary organizations. Convinced that personality and charisma alone can work effectively, many leaders function in a structure of executives and supporters that conduct and monitor the leader’s filtered-down or expressed will. A less or formal official bureaucracy may enhance a common personality as a wholly successful leader. Bureaucratic firms may also elevate incompetent persons to their leadership levels. In turn, these leaders can develop alliances and coalitions. Such leaders exist widely among political parties. Besides, some of the leaders rely on relationship with masses, as they work on actual organizational. There are many qualities expected from leaders in order to achieve organizational success. To begin with, leaders should have the ability to guide others by being role models, and via willingness to serve others ahead of themselves. Secondly, excellent leaders must have a technical skill and talent at a certain activity at hand. Leaders should be entrepreneurial and initiative to propel their organizations to success. There also ought to be charismatic inspiration to their followers, as well as a strong dedication to perform to their best. Leaders must also have explicit sense of reason or mission. Successful leaders should also have results-orientation that directs every task towards the achievement of the organizational mission. Optimism is also vital in the achievement of proper leadership in an organization. Additionally, effective leaders should believe in their abilities to bring positive changes in their organizations (Wefald, Reichard, and Serrano 521). Moreover, Ashraf (162) says that successful leaders should have a potential to nurture and encourage their followers. Furthermore, efficient leaders in an organization are those that act as good role models to their followers. They should have self-knowledge, especially those in non-bureaucratic structures. Self-awareness is also crucial in proper leadership as it enables leaders to continue their roles effectively. More so, great leaders can choose winners, and understand what other people say, instead of focusing on the manner in which they present their views. According to the situational leadership theory, there is no single finest psychographic leader’s profile that exists. Leadership behavior is a function, not only of the leader’s characteristics, but of the followers too. These variables include task’s nature, whether routine, or structured; peers’ expectations; organizational climate, policies, and culture; preferences of superiors; and followers’ reciprocal responses. Therefore, leadership necessarily concerns running a firm based on various situational and individual characteristic of managers. Nevertheless, there are certain leadership variants that depend on the type and situation of the firm. Full comprehension of these variables enables managers of the university and other organizations to do proper management. In the case of management and leadership, scholars indicate that there is a close relationship between the two concepts. Some of them argue that leadership as decentralized or centralized, intrinsic or extrinsic, focused or broad, and morale-centered or decision-oriented. In order to understand properly both concepts effectively, it is vital to examine their differences. To start with, leaders innovate, whereas managers administer. Moreover, managers mostly ask when and how questions, whole leaders ask the why and what questions. Leaders’ focus is on people, while the managers’ focus is on organizational systems. While managers ensure that they do things in the right way, leaders aim at doing the right things. Additionally, managers tend to maintain, while leaders seem to develop. What is more, managers tend to depend on control, but leaders aim at inspiring trust (Wefald, Reichard, and Serrano 521). Furthermore, managers differ from leaders in that they the former agree to a status-quo, while the latter tend to challenge status-quo. They also differ in that managers seem to imitate, while leaders tend base their actions on originality. Whereas managers fix their eyes on the bottom line, leaders have their eyes fixed on horizon. More so, managers usually emulate the conventional good soldier, while leaders they way they are. Lastly, managers are different from leaders, as managers tend to copy, while leaders display originality (Larson, Lisa, Rottinghaus, and Borgen 217). Larson, Lisa, Rottinghaus, and Borgen (217) further hold that success of a firm, to some degree, depends on the style of leadership in place. Various leaderships exist in the society for the organizations to adopt. Leadership styles can be important in various situations where there is a need to manager other people. Successful performance depends on the several factors that include organizational culture where people operate. The first leadership style involves directive leaders that have firm opinions concerning when and how things ought to be. Such leaders have limited leeway to subordinates to exercise independence, as they believe that they must abide by the schedules and techniques as initially set. Besides, they have great goal-orientation, and focus on results. Hence, they closely observe others’ performance and behavior (Alkahtani, Ali, Abu-Jarad, Sulaiman, and Davoud 76). The second category of leaders is the delegative leader that involves delegation of work to the juniors in an organization. Here, delagative leaders assign work to subordinates, instead of the active input into the manner of conducting projects. Participative leader also have concern on achieving the best out of a work team, and they believe that by collecting ideas and drawing a conclusion view the best answers to the questions that logically arise. Consultative leadership style comprises of directive and democratic leadership elements. Here, leaders focus on group discussion and seem to support contributions from different team members. Even though group discussions will have a democratic nature, these leaders also make the last decisions that must accept different proposals. What is more, a negotiative leadership style motivates subordinates through encouraging them with incentives in order to work for shared objectives. Here, leaders seem to depend on their persuasive skills to obtain their set goals (Alkahtani, Ali, Abu-Jarad, Sulaiman, and Davoud 77). Interrelatedness of the personality and leadership OB aspects There is a positive relationship between personality traits and leadership success and team performance. Some of the personality traits include emotional stability, surgency, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Moss and Ngu 70). Although there are no general personality traits, which predict leadership effectiveness in all organizational situations, organizational culture and situations need specific leadership styles and personality traits relative to the followers’ expectations of their leaders. Personality traits like conscientiousness, agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism, openness, and self-monitoring affect implied leadership theories (Michelle and Mumford 65). Hollenbeck (534) introduced an incorporated person-organization fit theory, in which there is a comparison between organizational structure and personality traits of the members. Naturally, firms develop a functional structure, which enables it to integrate with the outside environment effectively. This functional structure forms distinctive internal setting conditions, which need organizational members of specific personality traits to achieve organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, Hollenbeck (534) argue that effective organizations employ persons that display personality traits, which allow employees to fit into both external and internal organizational environments. In fact, top executives usually choose people for a leadership position based on the candidate’s experience or operational effectiveness. Moreover, Sorcher (123) top executives should base the choice of leaders on various soft leadership factors, which include cultural background, personal integrity, and personality. The most suitable way of forecasting leadership is to apply a combination of personality, cognitive personality, role-play, simulation, multi-rater evaluation techniques, and instruments. Besides, personality standards are efficacious in the prediction of efficient leadership. Notably, there is a positive association between proactive personality and both subjective success-criteria of job satisfaction, and objective success-criteria of promotions and salary (Alkahtani, Abu-Jarad, Sulaiman, and Davoud 70). As Marsiglia (1) reports, in a research of 652 workers creating 51 work teams, there was a strong relationship between personality, team members’ ability, and social cohesion, and team viability and performance. In relation to the composition of variable composition, teams greater in conscientiousness, general ability, extroversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability obtained administration ratings for group performance. Moreover, three personality traits of control, autonomy, and motivation orientation affect achievement and performance via attainment goal patterns, mental focus, and goal level (Larson, Lisa, Rottinghaus, and Borgen, Fred 217). Marsiglia (1) says that study indicates that world personality characteristics can aid researchers in the understanding and prediction of motivational approaches, which people employ while working for objectives in attainment settings. According to a US Army research by Connelly (65), leadership and personality are vital aspects of an OB. the study focuses on the significance of complex problem-solving skills, creative thinking, and social judgment skills. The civilian subjects used in the study indicate that motivation and personality are indispensable in the achievement of leadership success. The study also reveals that civilian and military executives usually choose individuals for a leadership position by basing on candidates’ experience or operation efficiency. Sorcher (78) further reiterates that executives should base their choice on cultural background, personal integrity, and personality. To understand total personality of an individual, it is imperative to know the types and degree of his interests. Early researchers established a strong connection between vocational interests and personality. According to Marsiglia (1), people with task-oriented personality kind seem to have a substantial emphasis on details. Such people feel uncomfortable in initiating an action-plan until they know that they got all essential facts. On contrast, individuals with relations-oriented personality kinds seem to focus on results considerably, and that they are comfortable in starting action-plan once they get vital facts. Thus, it is imperative for a leader to comprehend personality, and precisely change leadership style to fit the situation management (Moss and Ngu 70). Leadership theorists tend to consider leadership to be a one-way influence. Leaders have qualities that distinguish them from their followers. Nevertheless, the theorists do not acknowledge the degree to which followers and leaders have interactive influences through determining the followers’ characteristics that affect a situation. Personality foresees leadership occurrence across various settings and people. In fact, there is a favorable relationship between job performance and personality. The blend between personality and leadership appears to be a psychological combination, which offers leader’s ethos (Marsiglia1). The identification of leaders does not only happen by leadership styles, but also by their awareness, others’ awareness, personalities, and their appreciation of paradox, diversity, and flexibility. Imperatively, there is no single primary pattern of personality trait and abilities of leaders. The leader’s personality traits are important, but those that are necessary differ substantially depending on the situation. Thus, it is crucial to ascertain personality kind to establish the appropriate job match between colleagues and employees (Larson, Lisa, Rottinghaus, and Borgen 217). What is more, Alkahtani, Ali, Abu-Jarad, Sulaiman, and Davoud (72) maintain that leaders’ personality has a vital effect on their behavior. This is because personality has a crucial effect on the way they think, relate, and feel other people. introverts and extraverts, such as, symbolize the opposite sides of major personality traits, which affect how individuals form and manage links with others, as well as the way they communicate, both in personal affairs and at work. Most of the people are neither very introvert nor extrovert but in the middle. Leaders have high extraversion; they tend to enjoy having individuals, both in personal lives and at work. Such leaders also exist actively, and they will look for stimulation and excitement. Moreover, such leaders are probable to display optimistic and cheerful personalities. Conclusion OB is crucial in that it affects the performance of a particular organization adversely. OB has various aspects and principles, some of which are evident in this paper. In this case, the paper explored two OB aspects including personality and leadership effects on organizational performance. Moreover, the paper’s focus was on the analysis of the two aforementioned aspects in relation to Griffith University. Here, leadership and personality traits greatly influence the organizational performance. Some of the personality traits include in conscientiousness, general ability, extroversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. On the other hand, some of the leadership styles considered in the paper includes delegative, participative, directive, negotiative, and leadership. The two aspects have a strong interrelatedness in various ways in the effective attainment of organizational goals. This implies that personality traits of leaders determine the success in their organizations. Works cited Alkahtani, Ali Hussein, Abu-Jarad Ismael, Sulaiman Mohamed, and Davoud Nikbin. ‘The Impact of Personality and Leadership Styles on Leading Change Capability of Malaysian Managers.’ Australian Journal of Business and Management Research 1.2 (2011): 70- 100. http://ajbmr.com/articlepdf/ajbmr_v01n02_06.pdf Ashraf, T. Organizational Behavior, 2002. pp. 155-165. http://www.unesco.org/education/aladin/paldin/pdf/course02/unit_14.pdf Connelly, Mary, Shane, Gilbert, Janelle A., Zaccaro, Stephen, J., Threlfall, K. Victoria, Marks, Michelle, A., & Mumford, Michael, D. ‘Exploring the relationship of leadership skills and knowledge to leader performance’. Leadership Quarterly, 11.1 (2000): 65-86. Hollenbeck, John, R. ‘A structural approach to external and internal person-team fit. Applied Psychology.’ An International Review 49.3, (2000): 534-549. Houghton, Jeffery, D. The Relationship between Self-Leadership and Personality: A Comparison of Hierarchical Factor Structures, 2000: 1-77. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd- 06062000-12260008/unrestricted/etd.pdf Larson, Lisa M, Rottinghaus, Patrick J., & Borgen, Fred H. ‘Meta-analysis of big-six interests and big-five personality factors.’ Journal of Vocational Behavior 61.2 (2002): 217-239 Marsiglia, Andrew, J. The Relationship between leadership and Personality, 2005: 1-40. Moss, Simon, A, and Ngu, Simon, ‘The Relationship between Personality and Leadership Preferences.’ Current Research in Social Psychology 11.6 (2006): 70-90. http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp11_6.pdf Sorcher, Melvin, & Brant, James. ‘Are You Picking the Right Leaders?’ Harvard Business Review 80.2 (2002): 78-86. Wefald, Andrew J. Reichard, Rebecca J., and Serrano Shawn A. ‘Fitting Engagement into a Nomological Network: The Relationship of Engagement to Leadership and Personality.’ Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 18.4, (2011): 521-537. Read More