Big Five Model of Personality - Coursework Example

Big Five Model of Personality Name Institution Affiliation Instructor Big Five Model of Personality Introduction Certain personality traits combine with situational manipulations in a peculiar manner to yield motivational states, which in turn impact cognitive performance (Choi, Oh & Colbert, 2015). This essay is aimed at reflecting on the role of individual differences in my own management practices and organizational outcomes with a particular focus on the Big Five Model of Personality. That is; the essay presents a brief overview of the Big Five Model of Personality, attempts to identify and reflect on my individual strengths and weaknesses in personality based on each dimension of the model; explain how personality affects my individual motivation and work performance; and highlights strategies for improving my personality in the future. Overview of the Big Five Model of Personality The Big Five Dimensions of Personality is commonly applied in the studying human personality. The model was derived from factor analyses of a wide range of self- and peer reports on relevant personality adjectives and questionnaire items (Blickle et al., 2013). Despite not capturing the idiosyncrasies of unique personalities of all people, the model offers a helpful theoretical framework through which an individual can get better understanding the general components of his or her personality that seem to be the most critical not only in social interactions, but also in one’s interpersonal interactions and relationships with others. These dimensions include Agreeableness, Extraversion, Intellect or open to experience, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism/emotional stability (Appendix 2). Relative strengths and Weaknesses in Personality Every employee brings varied knowledge, skills and abilities to work and a number might not be utilized presently though can if they are singled out hence identifying individual strengths and weaknesses lays the foundation for enhancing efficiency at work (Choi, Oh & Colbert, 2015). I have several relative strengths based on the dimension of the Big Five. First, I am relatively organized. From the Big Five dimensions, high level of organization denotes a conventional personality. Judge et al. (2013) describe individuals who are perceived to be conventional as relatively orderly and task-oriented, and have a tendency to play by the rules. Besides a marked preference for working with data and numbers, this strengths further helps me to perform my tasks not only in detail, but also adhere to the instructions of others. In simple terms, I always put my mind, eyes and hands to work when carrying out tasks. Furthermore, ethical management and leadership is strength in my personality, and involve carefulness and self-discipline. Ethical leadership calls for critical balance, a fundamental aspect of effective leadership from which I can understand how to strike an appropriate balance between power and ethical choice. From critical reflection I can derive metrics to assess my personal leadership skills and ability. At the core of this strength are personal assumption and belief that dictate what an individual believe. Upholding work ethics helps me to critically evaluate and get a deeper understanding of personal beliefs and assumptions. Personal beliefs and assumptions reflect a person’s norms and values (Kalshoven, Den Hartog & De Hoogh, 2011). Both terminal values and instrumental values are essential to my personality as they illuminate the appropriate pathway to effective, ethical worker. Another set of core strengths includes include sympathy and courtesy, which arise from relative emotional intelligence - the ability of an individual to identify, understand and effectively manage not only his or her own emotions, but also the emotions of others around (Gondal & Husain, 2013). In light of the Needs Theory of Motivation, if the employees fail to meet a higher-level need, the desire to accomplish a low-level need increases (Deci & Ryan, 2012). That is, if the employees fail to understand and regulate their emotions, the motivation to study and manage the emotions of others with utmost courtesy and sympathy will definitely decrease. I always encourage myself to reflect and take control over my workplace tasks and responsibilities help detect success and areas that require improvement. Taking control over my emotions and those of others is particularly essential as employees are more motivated intrinsically than extrinsically (Cerasoli, Nicklin & Ford, 2014). However, there are a couple of weaknesses that limit my personality. First, relative poor sociability is a significant weakness. Today, group dynamics in the corporate world are increasingly becoming diverse. From a System Theory perspective, organizational behavior can be conceptualized as individual and group dynamics in an organization (Chiaburu, Diaz & De Vos, 2013). There is a growing importance of social skills in the contemporary corporate environment because computers are still very poor at simulating human interactions in organizations (Blickle et al., 2013). Limited social skills limit my personality because employees naturally differ in their ability to perform the diverse workplace tasks. It impedes the spirit of teamwork in leadership and management, hence lowering productivity because one cannot “trade tasks” at a lower cost, allowing team members to work more efficiently. Second, limited creativity and curiosity are relative weaknesses to my personality because change is inevitable in any organization. It is worth noting that successful organizational mostly depends on innovative staff and good management skills (Lambert & Davidson, 2013). To initiate and facilitate change, the characteristic of a motivator is essence for, enforcer, role model, and decision maker. Similarly, Buller & McEvoy (2012) assert that better performance necessitates creative thinkers – individuals who can come up with smart ideas that forms the foundation of innovation. Innovative leaders are creative visionaries who can bring forth big ideas, just like in facilitating change, motivate individuals around them to transform those ideas into reality or bring about change. Therefore, being weak in creativity and curiosity to change the status quo is a major drawback to my performance. Another considerable limitation is insecurity, which relates to emotional stability or neuroticism. Insecure managers and leaders are dangers to an organization because they are susceptible to fear and doubt, they are overly anxious. Blickle et al. (2013) opine that when insecurity exists in an employee or manager’s life it can transform into a cap to their influence and effectiveness, whose impact hurt themselves, those around them, and the organization at large primarily because most adverse behavior emanate from insecurity. Due to this insecurity, I often encounter challenges in leading others effectively because my actions, attitudes and emotions become a function of my insecurity that controls and drives them. How Personality Affects Individual Motivation and Work Performance The impact my personality bears on my motivation and work performance relates to the strengths and weaknesses in my personality highlighted above. First, relative organization enhances my focus on performing tasks through which I set goals and commit myself to achieving them. From a Goal Setting Theory perspective, setting individual goals offers a sense of direction which direct attention and energy towards achieving the set goal (Deci & Ryan, 2012). However, Chiaburu, Diaz, & De Vos, 2013 caution that leaders should set goals employees can achieve since setting unattainable targets may de-motivate them. Nonetheless, conventional personality allows me to solve problems and address issues by appealing to and following rules and instruction. This in turn increases my motivation and commitment to tasks hence improving performance. Second, ethical practice, as depicted in my carefulness and self-discipline, is a major source of motivation and better performance. Striking appropriate balance between power and ethics is a revered tradition at my workplace which I practice through critical reflection of my actions and consequences. Utilitarianism stresses the consequences of an individual act, and conforms to no absolute rules, except that the greatest good is meant for the greatest number (Sheng, 2012). I always strive to be open, diverse, and culturally sensitive. These attributes motivates me to acknowledge but most importantly respect the cultural similarities and differences among my team members. In this regards, the appreciation of the cultural diversity ensures minimum or no assigning either a positive or negative value (Deci & Ryan, 2012). As a result, I can perform better because of the ability and motivation to work with people of different educational age, marital status, gender, race, religious and ideological affiliation among others. Besides that, sympathy and courtesy empower me to create more relationships, but also enhance my communication skills. Identifying with my co-workers often results into both relations and friendships. Leveraging these relationships helps me advance at work and in life, which from Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs, leads to self-actualization (Scally & Kavanagh, 2015). Also, where these relationships and friendships lead to satisfaction of my social, relating with colleagues boost my confidence which meet my self-esteem needs (Scally & Kavanagh, 2015). I derive motivation from satisfaction of this needs while the ability to work in large groups inadvertently builds my communication skills, which in turn, improve my work performance. Nonetheless, the weaknesses in my personality affects my motivation and work performance adversely. For instance, being less sociable and friendly is a hindrance to developing and sustaining trusted relationships. (Miner, 2015) observed that individuals in one’s circle will either lead you forward or hold you back. This statement communicates the essence of building friendships and relationships, which boosts a person’s positive confidence. Frederick Herzberg’s two factor theory suggests that being less sociable and friendly compromise my motivation due to the absence of motivational factors that exist in relationships such as respect, recognition, trust and individual and social development (Mangi, Kanasro & Burdi, 2015). The resultant negative effects spill over to work performance. Moreover, limited creativity bears negative effect on both motivation and work performance. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory postulates that behavior arises from conscious choices among alternatives that primarily seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain (Miner, 2015). Vroom further observed that an individuals’ performance is anchored on personal factors including personality, skills, knowledge, experience, and abilities (Miner, 2015). From the lens of this theory, the lack of knowledge, skills and ability to be creative at the workplace can potentially kill my morale and commitment to work, hence leading to poor performance. Additionally, an insecurity is a significant setback to my motivation and work performance. Major negative outcomes of insecurity in an organization context include subjectivity to fear and doubt, establishment of an insecure workplace, resistance to personal, team and organization change and growth, avoidance of calculated risks, and inhibition of strong and open relationships (Blickle et al., 2013). Despite no individual or leader exempt from potentially feeling insecure, the inability to figure out and eliminate unnecessary insecurity from my personality adversely affects both my morale and work performance. Strategies for Improving Personality in the Future The first strategy to improving my personal motivation and work performance in future is finding a perfect personality-environment fit (Sharif, 2015). Psychologist John Holland got interested in the role that personality played in how individuals select vacations, which inspired him to postulate a trait-theory of personality which asserted that all individuals have six sets of personality attributes, including Realistic, Investigative , Artistic, Enterprising, Social and Conventional (Sharif, 2015). This theory is centered on the premise that individuals strive to attain a personality-environment fit in the course of their work and work settings they choose. This enable them to spend their time performing work that allows them to get immersed in their personal interests, which strengthen their natural motivation and commitment to work, hence making them feel more satisfied and happy in doing their job. Also, setting personal goals can improve motivation and work performance. By clearly defining the specific goals to be achieved at the end of a given work, employees develop commitment, respect and loyalty to their tasks and contribute to the realization of both individual and organizational mission and goals, thus leading to increased motivation and performance excellence. Because roles conflict and change, staff need to organize their working strategy to be explicit and to include major performance requirements (Buller & McEvoy, 2012). This practice is critical as it can help me ensure my plans and activities align with the established goals. Another potential approach is developing social skills. My scores on the Big Five measure indicate that I am relatively introverted, reserved, inhibited, and quiet. Human interaction at the places of work encompasses team production, with team members playing of each other’s strengths and adjusting flexibly to the ever changing corporate world (Judge et al., 2013). These non-routine interactions constitute some of the competitive advantages human have over machines. Also, social skills are critical to developing effective communication skills, establishing, creating mutually-benefiting relationships, and understanding thyself and others. I can derive the morale to do better at work because of an enabling environment where all members work as a team to realize a common goal. Lastly, training can boost motivation and work performance. Organizations face several challenges, including low production and decrease employee performance, low staff motivation and poor customer satisfaction, which are attribute to employees lacking or possessing limited workplace knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies to perform their tasks effectively (Blanchard & Thacker, 2013). Undertaking training can help an individual to further his skills and competence leading to increased motivation and improved job performance. Conclusion There exists an intricate relationship among the concepts of personality, motivation and individual work performance. The relative strengths in personality affect motivation and work performance positively while relative weaknesses bear adverse impact on motivation and work performance. Therefore, this essay suggest that leveraging the relative strengths coupled with addressing the weaknesses in one’s personality can help improve personal motivation and job performance in future. References Blanchard, P. N., & Thacker, J. W. (2013). Effective training: Systems, strategies, and practices (5thEd.). Blickle, G., Meurs, J. A., Wihler, A., Ewen, C., Plies, A., & Günther, S. (2013). The interactive effects of conscientiousness, openness to experience, and political skill on job performance in complex jobs: The importance of context. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(8), 1145-1164. Buller, P. F., & McEvoy, G. M. (2012). Strategy, human resource management and performance: Sharpening line of sight. Human resource management review, 22(1), 43-56. Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 980. Chiaburu, D. S., Diaz, I., & De Vos, A. (2013). Employee alienation: Relationships with careerism and career satisfaction. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28(1), 4-20. Choi, D., Oh, I. S., & Colbert, A. E. (2015). Understanding organizational commitment: A meta-analytic examination of the roles of the five-factor model of personality and culture. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(5), 1542. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Motivation, personality, and development within embedded social contexts: An overview of self-determination theory. The Oxford handbook of human motivation, 85-107. Gondal, U. H., & Husain, T. (2013). A Comparative Study of Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Intelligence: Effect on Employees’ Performance. Asian journal of Business management, 5(1), 153-162. Judge, T. A., Rodell, J. B., Klinger, R. L., Simon, L. S., & Crawford, E. R. (2013). Hierarchical representations of the five-factor model of personality in predicting job performance: integrating three organizing frameworks with two theoretical perspectives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(6), 875. Kalshoven, K., Den Hartog, D. N., & De Hoogh, A. H. (2011). Ethical leader behavior and big five factors of personality. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(2), 349-366 Lambert, S. C., & Davidson, R. A. (2013). Applications of the business model in studies of enterprise success, innovation and classification: An analysis of empirical research from 1996 to 2010. European Management Journal, 31(6), 668-681. Mangi, A. A., Kanasro, H. A., & Burdi, M. B. (2015). MOTIVATION TOOLS AND ORGANIZATIONAL SUCCESS: A CRITICLE ANALYSIS OF MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES. The Government-Annual Research Journal of Political Science., 4(4). Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge. Scally, K., & Kavanagh, D. (2015, July). Following Maslow-an outline theory of motivation for the individual firm. In The 9th International Conference in Critical Management Studies: Stream 27: Managerial Agency and the Maintenance of Inequalities, Leicester, UK, 8-10 July 2015. Sharif, R. (2015). A Model of Creativity in Organizations: John Holland's Theory of Vocational Choice (1973) at Multiple Levels of Analysis. The Journal of Creative Behavior. Appendices Appendix 1: Dimensions of Big Five Personality Model Personality Dimension Personality Traits/Characteristics Extraversion A person’s level of sociability and enthusiasm Agreeableness A person’s level of friendliness and kindness Conscientiousness one’s level of organization and work ethic Neuroticism/emotional stability An individual’s level of calmness and tranquility Intellect/ open to experience An individual’s level of creativity and curiosity Appendix 2: My Scores on the Big Five Measure Read More