The Importance of Understanding of Personalities by Managers - Assignment Example

The Importance of understanding of personalities by managers Importance of Personality The term personality originated from the Greek word ‘Persona’,which means the mask worn by players on the stage and often refers to the external impression one makes. The famous psychologist G.W Allport defined personality as follows: “Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual, of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to environment”. Man, Material, Machine and Money are the resources of an organisation. Among them man is the most important entity. No amount of money, materials and machines can produce results by themselves. Men are the driving force behind the resources of an organisation. Without the intelligence of human other resources won’t work. The intelligence and personality of two people will never be the same. There may be some similarities, but mostly the personalities and characters, behaviours etc…will differ from person to person. Heredity and environment have a vital role in individual differences. The efficiency of a manager lies in, identifying different personalities properly and thereby utilizing maximum capabilities of a person. For this purpose a manager should have proper understanding of personalities of each person he is dealing with. It is not easy to measure the personality. It can be accessed using several techniques. Personality is unique, dynamic, continuous, and have covert and overt functions. Learning develops a personality. It is a product of heredity, environment, inner and outer aspects. Proper understanding of personality types will help managers to see others more objectively. He should be aware of the personalities of Co-workers, Customers and the Boss at least. Why managers should understand and know the personalities of the subordinates..! Why managers might concern themselves with the personalities of those they employ is a question to be answered first. In an organization, the employees might be coming from different culture, regions or countries. They might be different in their environment, heredity, socio economic and family backgrounds. Their languages, intelligence, character and culture may also be different. Their perception about certain thing or situation may also be different. Under such circumstances perfect understanding of each personality is required for the manager for the smooth functioning of the organization. Thus the managers will be benefitted from the awareness of the employee’s personality, immensely. An excellent worker in one field may not be fit in another field even if he is well educated or well experienced. Different workers have different tastes and interests. So positioning of them in the right area is important. A well experienced clerk should allow, working in the same field. It is rubbish to appoint him in sales or other fields of the organization. For this purpose the manager should understand the personality of his subordinates very well. For effective communication the manager should understand the personality of the subordinate. Some subordinates may have certain peculiar behaviors or manners in responding. The manager should identify all such things and should correct it if necessary. The personality should never be evaluated using his behavior in the work place alone. His behavior in his family, society and among peer group should be studied to get a perfect picture about him. If the manager is aware of the strong and weak points of a subordinate he can correct the wrong ones and can motivate him also. The manager should adopt different strategies to different workers based on the personality study. Understanding of subordinate personality will help the manager to assign tasks to his subordinates without embarrassing them. The modern managing techniques are not rooted on the power of the manager. Though the authority of the manger should be preserved the approach of the manager towards the subordinates should be democratic. An autocrat manager will never win the confidence of the workers. The manager should be a friend, a guide, and a teacher to the subordinates. He must be of subtle, experienced and intimate manner with a view to creating a close relation with his subordinates. In some cases an individual can be confused about his role in an organisation. It is the manager’s duty to define his role clearly and correctly. The manager should make him aware that how important he is to the organisation and what is expected of him. Sometimes the worker may be confused with a situation, because of lack of knowledge about his role in the organisation. Suppose the marketing manager who is dealing with the customers is not present in the work place and the phone in his cabin is ringing. A worker will be confused whether to attend that call or not. If the manager has given him proper tips earlier he could have attend the call without any hesitation. So the duties and responsibilities of the worker should be clearly mentioned to him. This should include what is expected of him and what is not expected from him. This will help the worker in identifying his role in the organisation and he will definitely deliver the goods to the organisation. Stress can be a big factor on worker’s personality while he is responding to his duties. So the manager should identify the problems of the worker and should help him to overcome such problems in whatever the ways possible. In fact stress can make an individual dull and very much passive while delivering his duties. The problems related to his family or society can affect his works. In such cases the manager can play a vital role in helping the individual to overcome such things. The manager should allow him to express his perceptions and then should give the tips to help him in what all ways possible. The temperament of the manager will be tested in some cases. Some workers will come and explain too many things and thereby waste the time of the manager. Being a good listener to the worries of the worker itself will be a boost for him. If possible the manager should provide ways to overcome his stress. Motivation is an important factor in an organisation. The motivation will make the work a lot easier. If the motivation comes from within the mind of the worker then he will definitely develop more interest in the work. The attitude of the worker is important in delivering quality services. The motivation technique can be different. In some cases managers will offer incentives, bonus, promotions etc. to motivate the worker towards the work. In order to meet the deadline while working on a tight schedule the managers usually adopt such techniques. In some cases the managers will offer one day holiday for the workers after the completion of a particular work which is going on a tight schedule. Once the manager successfully adopted a motivation technique, his job will be much easier. The abilities and skill levels of two persons doing the same job may be different. The methodology applied by two persons doing the same job may be different. The quality of the work may be different if two persons of different styles doing the same wok asked to deliver at the same time. A worker who is slow usually will deliver a quality product. At the same time the worker who is doing fast will sacrifice some quality elements at the expense of speed. So the manager should allocate work to such people based on the deadline and quality of work required. Once the manager understands other personality type, then he can have more compassion and support for them. Conflicts and ego clash are usual things in an organisation. Some workers enjoy making conflicts in the organisation. Jealousy towards the manager or the supervisor may end up in serious issues. For the subordinates, the manager is enjoying much more than what they are getting and they may think that they are not getting enough for what they are doing. I know the story of a manager whose experimentation successfully identified a talent and at the same time managed successfully an ego centric worker, while working in a printing press in Dubai. There was a printer who was best among the others in that firm. This printer was very much guided by his ego and he assumed that no one else in that company can manage difficult works. The manager faced a lot of difficulties in managing this person. At last the manager decided to settle the issue. The manager called an unskilled worker (helper) and gave him a difficult printing work which normally the other expert printer will do. With the help and tips from the manager this unskilled worker successfully completed the work. Here the manager was successful in two things. First of all he identified a talent and not only that, he has silenced the expert printer also. Normally no managers will dare to go for such experimentation. Theoretically this experimentation may not be possible. The laws the managers studied during their MBA studies may not be useful in such situations. Here the manager got two birds for one shot. So the individual approaches may be required in certain situations. The manager might not be helped by his academic studies in dealing such situations. When we analyse the above situation deeply we can see that normally the managers will try to manage the expert printer with their managing techniques learned through academic studies. Sometimes they will use their power to manage such workers (the expert printer). In such cases there might be a chance of termination or cancellation of the employment contract of the printer if the printer is no flexible. The company may not be interested in that since he was an expert in his works. So the manager sometimes will be succumbed by such employees in order to get the work done smoothly. This will question the authority of the manager. In such cases the experienced manager will go for experimentation as discussed above, because of the lessons learned from his experience. So the knowledge getting from experience may be better compare to the theoretical knowledge. Here the manager was successful in analysing the personality in specific situations like these. The manager accepted the challenge put forward by the printer successfully. Here we should think of a situation in which if the experimentation fails. The printer will exert more and more pressure and the boss may also question the methodology. So the methodology adopted by the manager is also important while dealing with different personalities. An individual with a sound character and personality is always an asset to the organization while the one with an immature personality and character always a liability. The manager should help the immature ones to improve their personality and character. Personality conflicts can cause problems in the organization some times. It is the duty of the manager to avoid such clashes between two individuals of indifferent personalities. Also sometimes such clashes can affect the work also. In some cases this type of clashes results in deliberately delaying the work and causing unnecessary problems in the work. The manager should identify such things and should take necessary precautions to avoid such things. The manager’s capabilities will be tested in such cases. He should carefully draft a solution to avoid any delay in works and also should be careful in tackling the problems within the group of personalities. The solution should never lead to increase the ego issues of the workers. It is important for the manager to know the intellectual levels of the personalities he is dealing with. This will help him in identifying the right person for the right job. If he is unaware of the intellectual level of workers, sometimes he will allocate jobs to some workers who are not capable of doing it. This will increase his headaches and the relationship with the employees also can be damaged. The abilities of the workers should be considered before allotting the work to him. Competition among workers is another problem the manager might face. They will be directed by their super egos in such cases. Healthy competitions can be encouraged while unhealthy ones should be discouraged. The manager should make both of them aware of their importance to the organisation. He should never hurt the feelings of anyone. The manager should be well aware of the personality traits to deal with such situations. Based on the case study the manager should adopt strategies to deal with different individuals. At the same time the workers should never get a feeling that the manager is keeping different standards to different people.The manager should adopt the role of a coach or a counsel. He should never act as a judge. Immature judgements about subordinates will affect the functioning of the manager. Whatever the judgement the manger has about a particular worker should be kept in mind only “Each personality type has creative capacity because each experiences a restlessness of a unique sort” (Linda V Berens, Sue A Cooper, Linda K Ernst, Charles R Martin, Steve Myers, Dario Nardi, Roger R Pearman, Marci Segal, Melissa A Smith - Quick Guide to the 16 Personality Types in Organizations: Understanding Personality Differences in the Workplace Page 2, Publisher: Telos Pubns (February 15, 2002). Every individual have creative capacity which may be different from person to person. A person who has not got enough opportunities to utilize his creativity will experience restlessness. It is the duty of the manager to identify the creativity of each person and utilize it in a constructive manner. A person who is interested in clerical works may not be that much interested in sales. Based on the skills the manager should allocate the works also. A good worker is a valuable asset to any company “Use the activities and descriptions that follow to find the pattern of your personality. Once you experience the certainty of that pattern, you will find adapting and growing easier and more rewarding” (Linda V. Berens - Understanding Yourself and Others: An Introduction to the 4 Temperaments-3.0, Page 5, Publisher: Telos Publications September 27, 2006). The manager should be well aware of his personality details before dealing with others. Otherwise there will be more chances of conflict between his personality and others. The understanding of personalities will help the manager to use his power judiciously. The manager should use appropriate power so that subordinates willingly obey the orders and come forward with commitment. The implementation of power should be properly done. This can be varied from person to person based on the individual differences. The use power should never destroy a worker. It should be carefully tuned in such a way that the worker should identify his mistakes and should correct it. The timing of usage of power is also important. In order to utilise the power the manager have, he definitely should have a case study of each personalities he is dealing with. He should adopt different tactics for different personalities based on the data he collected from the case study. The manager should understand that personality is more than what he sees on the surface. He may realize that someone he misread initially is exactly who he have been seeking for a job, or is most compatible in a social relationship. He might even find himself more appreciative of the differences in people because he will recognize that their strengths are his weaknesses, and how those variations offer the greatest opportunity to create a dynamic team of self-motivated people. The manager should not be conclusive about a person’s abilities without proper examinations. Once a Production manager has told me about an unskilled worker. His duty was the entire cleaning of the factory and making tea for the employees. But once when the manager and all the other workers were confused about how to execute a work, this fellow came up with a tremendous idea and they utilized it in that job. So we cannot write off people who assume to have low intellectual level. It is the manager’s duty to listen to the opinion of everybody who ever it may be and then he can take decisions. The subordinates will respond to a democratic manager who likes them more than an autocratic manager who uses power as the weapon to execute jobs. The manager should interact with people and should develop strong relationship with them. At the same time he should ensure that this relationship is not been utilised by the workers for unnecessary things. The manager should have some knowledge about the social and family background of every personality he is dealing with. This will help him to develop different tactics for each of them. The selection of individual or group of individuals is important when executing job satisfaction studies. It should be selected from persons of different groups with different personality levels. Otherwise the validity and reliability of the studies may not be good. Making conclusions based on such studies will lead the manager to false interpretations about the results. So the manager should ensure that the studies are reliable, the data collected are properly evaluated and the result may not be biased. Reward scheme will encourage employees to improve their performance and also this will improve healthy competition among the employees. The manager should provide an adequate reward structure to encourage performance of employees. But the manager should keep uniform standards while dealing with such things. Manager delegates authority where needed and invites participation where possible to achieve the better result. The manager should allocate the required materials for the work. Without that the manager does not have the right to ask for the execution of the work in time. By communicating to workers what is expected of them, leader, and the manager brings effectiveness to organisation. He does not expect perfection. The manager should understand the benefits of cooperation and the losses from competition between workers and between groups. The manager removes barriers and stumbling block to effective performance. Emotions of the workers may reflect in their work also. The sudden changes in the manners of the subordinates might be due to his problems in family or society. The manager should recognise it and should take remedial measure for that. So the role of manager in understanding personalities is much more important for the smooth functioning of the organisation. An adamant manager will never succeed in utilising the maximum output of a worker. The manager should be intelligent enough to foresee such problems and should be smart enough to resolve such issues. Every detail of the manager as a person, every nuance of his speech-all of those signals combines to create an important impression in worker’s mind. The key is being versatile and resilient, so that the manager can adapt his style to someone else’s style to achieve a mutual outcome. The manager is the link between the worker and the organisation. So the link should be strong enough to overcome challenges from the top and also from the bottom. Understanding the personality of Customers Expressive people like to talk and laugh but it’s important to relate to people on their own terms, which is the very basis of understanding public relations. The manager should have a good listening habit while dealing with customers. Though he might be expressive in nature, it is very important to hear the demands of the customers even if their views are not at all matching with his views. A good listener will always successful in analyzing the orator. In modern world the aim of business negotiation is not only to capture the work, but to building relationships also. So be a dumb person in front of the customer is a good strategy. The words used in the interaction should be carefully designed to build the relationship. A careful analysis of the customer will result in identifying his needs and thereby he can execute the project successfully. Some customers may be more focused in getting the work done in a cheaper price. He may not be that much specific about the quality. In some other cases the customer may be more specific about the quality than the price. So the proper understanding of the customer will help the manager to suggest appropriate options to each one. In some cases after the approval of the projects and its price, the customers will make modifications in the project which may cause additional expenses to the manager. So better awareness about the customer is essential for the manager. The manager can put additional clauses while preparing the estimation in such cases. These additional clauses may irritate other genuine customers. So segregation of customers is important. For that better understanding of customer personality will be helpful to the manager. “Understanding the inner working of the personality types helps to some degree, but information alone is not enough to free us”( Don Richard Riso Russ Hudson - Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types (Paperback) Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 1 edition January 1, 2000). Adjustment and integration are the important characteristics of personality. If the adjustment of the individual with his environment is normal, he develops a balanced personality. If it is not normal he becomes a deviate personality. Hence the nature of adjustment determines the soundness of personality. A mature personality will have six factors as per the great psychologist Allport. They are sense of self, cordiality, emotional control, and recognition of outer reality, self objectification and a sound philosophy of life. The manager should have awareness about these factors in order to recognize a person correctly. Manager should never be conclusive about a person based on the information alone he have. He should try to understand the inner personality of the individual. A quick learning about a customer while dealing with him is important. Customers are different in their needs, nature, culture, intelligence etc... An intelligent manager will quickly adapt with such persons. The methodology adapted to one may not be good enough for the other for the simple reason that one may be a service provider to you and the other is taking service from you. The management methodology applied to a supplier may be entirely different from that applied to a purchaser. The success of manager lies in managing both the suppliers and purchasers effectively. One of my friends once told me about an interesting experience with a customer while he was working in Dubai as a ‘Sales Manager’. The customer approached him with a project and asked for a quotation. After examining the diagram, my friend realised that only for a part of the work, the customer is asking the price. My friend enquired about the rest and the customer after a little bit hesitation told him that the rest of the work he will manage somewhere else. My friend quickly realised that the customer’s intension was to get the difficult portion of the work done by him since his company had a good reputation of doing such difficult works. Since Their rates were bit high compared to others, the customer thought that he can manage the majority of the work in some other place for a cheaper rate while the difficult portion he was not confident of managing there. My friend made him aware that this will create headaches for the customer since two portions made by two different suppliers will never match while assembling. My friend asked him to do it in one place, either in their factory or in the other since while assembling two portions done in two different work places may not match properly even though the measurements and other statistics are given to both the units. He explained the anticipating problems quite clearly to the customer. Finally the customer decided to allocate the entire package to my friend after little negotiations. So proper understanding of customers and their intensions will help us to succeed in our duties. Understanding the personality of Boss The manager should not expect the company of people who like him every time. In the real world we dont have the luxury of simply surrounding ourselves with people like us.The manager has to deal with the customers, the boss and the co-worker. Everyone have their own characteristics and their own rights and wrongs. The thing which is right in the views of the manager may not be the same for the boss or for the customer or the co-worker. Sometimes all the three categories may have different opinions.. In order to succeed the manager should be well aware of the personalities of the above three at least. The demands of the boss may not be in line with the demands of co-workers or customers. The boss will always give importance to the balance sheet rather than anything else. He will be more focused to the profit of the company. At times the manager has to sacrifice something to satisfy the customer to capture a business which may not satisfy the boss. The extra incentives or rewards given to the workers may not be the interesting things to the boss. Good awareness about the boss will help the manager to tackle such situations successfully. So the personality study of the boss is also important for the manager.The success of a manager lies in how cleverly he managing these personalities especially, co-workers, customers and the boss. A matured and balanced approach can reduce the headaches of the manager. Even though he is managing the 4M’s, Man, Material, Machine and Money in an organization, the most important one is man management and for that he need better awareness of personality traits and individual differences. Sources 1. Don Richard Riso Russ Hudson - Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types (Paperback) Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; 1 edition January 1, 2000) 2. Linda V Berens - Sue A Cooper, Linda K Ernst, Charles R Martin, Steve Myers, Dario Nardi, Roger R Pearman, Marci Segal, Melissa A Smith - Quick Guide to the 16 Personality Types in Organizations: Understanding Personality Differences in the Workplace Page 2, Publisher: Telos Pubns (February 15, 2002) 3. Linda V. Berens - Understanding Yourself and Others: An Introduction to the 4 Temperaments-3.0, Page 5, Publisher: Telos Publications September 27, 2006) 4. Andy Kaufman - Customers are from Venus, Managers are from Mars - Horizon Time - http://www.i-leadonline.com/Newsletter/0206.htm Read More