The Big Five Personality Traits and Environmental Engagement - Literature review Example

Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Managing People and Organizations Introduction With the rapid change in the business environment all over the world, reliable and apt leadership is critical to the effectiveness of any organization. This is because leaders aim for change in individuals toward the needed goal. In 2008, Skringar & Stevens maintained that leadership is a process which not only impacts employees, but the very leaders as well, so as to realize the objectives of the organization by means of change. It is actually the personality of a leader, which plays a very big role in shaping up to how the organization operates. Personality entwines a leader’s influence on employees, organizational objectives and change (Milfont & Sibley 188). So as to be an effective leader one has to have a strong personality. Based on the information, this literature reviews the effects of the Manager’s personality on the individual behavior and performance at the work. The literature will also analyze a leader’s personality using Big Five personality tests and describe the change a leader can create using their characteristic. Effects of the Manager’s personality on the individual behavior and performance at the work Literature Review Personality is defined the distinctive patterns of thought, feelings and behaviors which make a person different from others (Bartone et al 499). Personality is regarded as a significant element in personality based researches, particularly for forecasting the job performance of a manager or an employee. This aspect of a person emanates from genetic heritage, including his immediate environments, and remains stable throughout their lives. Personality plays a major role in behaviors in every organization since it takes into consideration the way individuals think, behave and feel. In an organizational perspective, the personality of a manager determines everything; the behavior, motivation, culture and performance. According to Bartone et al it is a behavior that distinguishes an individual from another and offers insight whether an individual will do some particular job, compared to others (503). Milfont & Sibley argued that the personality theories, observe the inconsistencies and similarities in an individual (191). The similarities are employed to predict person’s behavior and performance, as they present collective characteristics of human nature. Mkoji & Sikalieh claim that “professionals in the discipline of personality believe that managers actually have a long term and secure traits which influence their behaviors at the workplace” (187). Based on a study on personality, some experts argued that personality is an effectual tool which forecasts performance on the job. The system is majorly embraced during the process of personnel selection. They panel will look at how a manager answers questions during an interview if the behavior they see matches their expectations. Interviewing panel also understands that cold managers may not work well with employees, because these types of people might not have the motivation and influencing power to steer employees to change or exemplary results (Colbert et al 603). Positive interpersonal skill is a personality characteristic which greatly influences the workplace. A manager with this attribute commonly likes working close with employees, and have the sensitivity and empathy which makes them to cope well with these employees. Managers with this form of personality are known to have good customer relations, good management of employees and are able to mediate problems. Even though the personality is shaped by environment, the manager must have a strong personality, such as agreeableness, surgency, adjustment, openness to experience or conscientiousness (Milfont & Sibley 193). There are particular personality traits which are necessary for manager behavior that may be needed for an organization to operate successfully. This is where you find the manager to be very sociable, have the outgoing personality and favor work environment which is more friendly and social (Kim, Hon & Crant 94). As such, he influences positive behaviors and a motivated workforce, which who presents positive performance. Different literatures argue that personality also influences decision-making skills and independence of a manager. As known in the democratic form of organization, everybody is involved in the decision making, but the final decision lies with the manager, and should be independence (Kim, Hon & Crant 94). In that setting, personality characteristics like self-efficacy, pro-activity and conscientiousness enable a manager make good decisions even under pressure and autonomously, whilst traits like not being open and neuroticism normally lead a manger to make the wrong decision. A wrong decision will always eat the organization from within and later results in poor performance. According to Colbert et al managers influence individual with these traits and place them in suitable positions to perform best (603). Some managers tend to be autonomous, egocentric and posses have a differential opinion on employees. In such case, employees feel isolated, less motivated and looked down upon. These behaviors affect manager performance because employees will not want associate and cooperate with that manager owing to the fear he or she has created on them. (Milfont & Sibley 189) There will be high employee turnover and poor organizational results. Manager’s social interaction in the workplace is because of his personality. Social interaction results to several outcomes like the job knowledge and insights in the employee’s behavior and attitude (Mkoji, D & Sikalieh 194). It is then held that the effect of a personality on the job performance relies on the outstanding factors of a manager. Overall personality holds a great influence on productivity or job performance or in the organizational environment. Analysis of personality using Big Five personality tests The study of personality was established nearly 30 years ago, but is importance have attracted a lot of discussion in the organization throughout its history (Milfont & Sibley 190). Since the performance is associated with personality, and companies compete on performance managers now take the personality traits very seriously during interviews. Knowing that personalities help describe and forecast individual’ behavior and job performance managers have since adapted The Big Five Model of Personality to assess whether an individual is stronger in agreeableness, neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience or conscientiousness (Milfont & Sibley 188). These personality traits are discovered during recruitment and selection to get the best manager for the company. In my perspective, the panel discovered high level of agreeableness, conscientiousness and open to experience. On the other hand, the panel discovered low level of neuroticism and extraversion. As a manager three traits of personality found to be positive has made my organization remain a top competitor in the market. These traits include conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness. In 2008, Skringar & Stevens posited that as an organizational consisting of managers and employees and departments who runs the system, manager need to get along with the rest of stakeholders to make things work. Fortunately, high agreeableness is my intrinsic trait, and this has enabled me to cope with every employee. This form of behaviors has created understanding and trust with employees. In turn, this has made the workforce more cooperative creating a room for outstanding management (Colbert et al 609). Manager with experience in organizational management understand that employees are social beings, therefore, exhibit agreeable personality which helps them be “warm” towards employees (Colbert et al 600). This makes them being supportive, attuned and responsive to their employee’s needs, and offering a safe and conducive environment for working. The desire for affiliation stands out in agreeable managers. Bartone et al assert that being close to employees make them more secure and are able to air their grievances (518). As a manager, one understands the issues affecting and solve them. In the process, the employees become motivated since their problems are being taken care of. According to Kim, Hon & Crant researches demonstrate a moderately modest but positive connection between agreeable trait and job satisfaction (95). They tend to be socially motivated and look for close relationships with personal friends or teams in the organization. This nature of relation ensures that manager is honest and frank with employees when their work is not satisfying and assists them the best results at work. Another personality trait that enabled me to steer is conscientiousness. Having high scores in conscientiousness has made me to aspire for better performance as an individual and in the organization as a whole. This trait has also driven me to be goal oriented, seek challenges affecting the organization, take responsibility in solving problems, always strive for employee’s excellence and seek feedback from employees on their performance (Bartone et al 513). This act has integrated in all levels of an organization to become a culture. In this perspective, every employee understands his/her roles and work hard to achieve individual and organizational goals. As a manager, I have felt that it is my duty and obligations to make the organization achieve its goals and meet the societal needs. They do well in non-usual, challenging, and competitive circumstances. Conscientiousness has created a responsibility and dependable in regards to organizational performance (Bartone et al 504). The dependability and responsibility concerns the manner in which manager plans, control and direct operations at the workplace. Mkoji & Sikalieh argue that “conscientiousness nature has helped managers make snap and effective decisions when faced with such situations” (185). A manager who is high in conscientiousness has some form of intelligence, reliability and prudence when arriving at the snap decisions. As the business environment changes and progresses forward, development in organizational design keep on taking new configurations. Organizations currently are keen to get on major opportunities and adapt innovation as transformation take place (Skringar & Stevens 7). These proliferations are of better ideas which could prospectively become effective innovations. To embrace innovations, managers must have the mindset and the personality which supports the idea. Based on organization, it is the openness to experience which have been driving the organization to carry out innovation and try new concepts, seek change and have a wider range of interests (Andreadis 6). From the word go, I had told the employees not to be afraid of giving new ideas and always strive to bring change to the organization. However, one personality trait that I would want to use more in management is agreeableness. This trait plays a big role in influencing change. As a manager I realized early in my career that to bring change all employees must be brought on board and convince to participate in the change process. If this is not done, employees could resist change leading to failure in realizing organizational goals. My agreeable nature has helped me a lot rally employees around team environment. During my past working as a marketing manager at Woolmark Company in Australia, I observed how lack of trust and less motivation was affecting the company. Being in the marketing field required a lot of socializing and team work (Colbert et al 605). In that regard, my goal was to bring marketing officers together to social, cooperate and trust one another before going out to socialize and serve customers. I wanted to make these employees how much they need each other so as to improve the performance of the company. Secondly, my agreeable trait helped me form teams among the marketing officers. While socializing with these employees I was able to identify individuals who can work together and group them in one team. After one year I noticed an improvement on company performance. Managers in the 21st century must therefore understand how important employees and even teams are to the organization (Bartone et al 511). As such, they must always endeavor to bring employees close one another and explain to them why team organization is important in realizing organizational goals. How my personality characteristics will influence a change Change can be taxing and complicated element of an organization (Kim, Hon & Crant 94). To some extent change can be predicted, but some emerge rapidly to be planned. Management behaviors and style influenced by personality form an organization’s culture. With my personality, I would influence the change of management structure, create a learning organization, improve workforce diversity and embrace technology. With openness to experience managers learns a lot with regarded to organization structure and design and how it influences performance (Skringar & Stevens 32). Woolmark Company has been using a divisional form of organization which is too complex because the long chain of command. As such employees feel manager are not close to them so they do not understand challenges employees are facing. As a social manager my trait would influence change of divisional structure to flat structure which eliminates several chains of command. It also takes too long for a decision to be made with owing to many levels of organization. A flat organization structure will ensure that in the organization is collaborative and less hierarchical (Skringar & Stevens 23). Flat organization is also known to encourage team setting. Form teams ensure that project and assignments are carried so fast and efficiently. My agreeable trait will ensure there is flow of information and process. Basically, this will be as a result of flat structure that has been created. Another change that would be influenced by my agreeable nature will be to create a learning organization. According to Andreadis, learning organization refers to an organization in which individuals keep on expanding their capabilities to craft the results they really aspire, where new and open thinking patterns are fostered, where shared goal is created (5). From the description it is understandable that learning organization is more of a team process as opposed to the individual and a continuous process. A learning organization is actually influenced by agreeable trait; bringing different people together to learn and corporate in doing projects or assignments. An organization that is set on the premise of a learning organization encourages leaning from each other so as to improve the performance (Andreadias 11). Agreeableness will ensure that team organization is formed which make people learn, share information and work together. Team learning and organization enables employees in growing their perspectives, advancing their knowledge and skills, broadening their intellectual capacity and make a good sense of oneself (Kim, Hon & Crant 95). To foster a learning organization, my personality would encourage recruiting and train young people from different cultural background so as to bring workforce diversity. Interacting with people from different cultural groups normally enables that company to get different talents and also be able to penetrate different markets (Mkoji & Sikalieh 192). In the 21st century, workforce diversity remains one of the important study issues in an organization. It influences personality on the organizational performance (Kim, Hon & Crant 103). Personality itself determines how managers deal with workforce diversity. Managers who are agreeable tend to be social and ready to form good relations with the workforce. This will be a learning process for both manager and employee. Creating a good a good atmosphere for diversity creates room for creativity and innovation (Kim, Hon& Crant 100). Diverse workforce tends to have pool talent they bring into the organization. They can also be used to attract new markets because they understand the culture and consumer behavior of that market. Another change that my personality trait will influence is the adoption of technology. Technology will ensure that the company can interact with its customers in an efficient and effective manner. Technology promotes social interaction and marketing. Through technology organization will be able to market its product on the social media platform and capitalizing on new opportunities and encouraging change processes (Skringar & Stevens 27). The opportunities that technology brings to organization are product research, development, production, packaging and marketing (Kim, Hon, & Crant 99). In this way, the company is capable of targeting a wide customer base and improves performance in the markets. Embracing technological change in the place or work enhances efficiency of recruiting, screening and hiring potential applicants. Technology platform such as personality screening and assessment tools will enable our organization to establish whether a prospective candidate is a proper fit (Colbert et al 607). I will influence the adoption of technology because people tend to believe in technology than human in operations. . Conclusion For a manager to operate an organization effectively, it is important have a strong personality and also a clear understanding of employees personality. This is because personality traits help the manager have the general organizational psychology and know how to deal with a particular job responsibilities. Every organization requires every unique individual personality so as to improve behavior and performance. As much as personality determines relations with the employees, this element alone cannot run organization; managers need different strategies to improve performance. The strategy for change must be in line with organizational structure, learning organization, technology and workforce diversity. Works Cited Andreadis, N. Learning and organisational effectiveness: A systems perspective. Performance Improvement 48 (2009): 5–11. Print Bartone et al. Big five personality factors, hardiness, and social judgment as predictors of leader performance. Leadership & Organization Development Journal 30 (2009): 498-521. Print Colbert, et al. Interactive effects of personality and perceptions of the work situation on workplace deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89 (2004): 599-609. Print Kim, T., Hon, A., & Crant, J. J. Proactive Personality, Employee Creativity, and Newcomer Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Business & Psychology, 24 (2009): 93- 103. Print Mkoji, D & Sikalieh, D. The Influence of Personality Dimensions on Organizational Performance. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. 2 (2012): 184-194. Print Milfont, T. & Sibley, C. The big five personality traits and environmental engagement: Associations at the individual and societal level. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32.2 (2012): 187-195. Print Skringar, E.R. & Stevens, T. Driving Change and Developing Organisations, 1st edn, Tilde University Press, 2008. Print Read More