The Concept of Personality Traits - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION: The concept of personality traits and Leader ship, being a crucial issue for current day practitioners has so many challenges in practice. The myths & statements like 'Leaders are born' and 'Leaders can be developed' is still under the question of research gaining and loosing at different instances. This makes one to observe the different traits of leaders and the theories and models of learning at one site. The present study aims at such purpose to observe the contributing factors for the development of leadership traits under the scope of Five-factor model of personality, triarchic theory of intelligence, intelligence and stress under cognitive theory, and emotional intelligence. The study also aims to observe the implications of above theories at different applicable areas of development and is proposed to highlight the development of leadership traits according to the industry needs. Personality: Personality, in psychology, the patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion unique to an individual, and the ways they interact to help or hinder the adjustment of a person to other people and situations. A number of theories have attempted to explain human personality. In his psychoanalytic interpretation, Sigmund Freud asserted that the human mind could be divided into three significant components-the id, the ego, and the superego-which work together (or come into conflict) to shape personality. Psychoanalysis emphasizes unconscious motivations and the conflicts between primal urges and learned social mores, stressing the importance of early childhood experiences in determining mature personality. Exponents of behaviorism, such as B. F. Skinner, suggest that an individual's personality is developed through external stimuli. In the behaviorist model, personality can change significantly with a shift to a new environment. Social-learning theorists, notably Albert Bandura, also emphasized environmental influences but pointed out that these work in conjunction with forces such as memory and feelings to determine personality. Personality traits and leadership: According to Warren Bennis, in his paper on "On Becoming a Leader" states that Managers are people, who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing. Though psychologists do not agree upon defining the leader, the term leader can be understood by observing the following personality traits: Traits are distinguishing qualities or characteristics of a person, while character is the sum total of these traits. There are hundreds of personality traits, far too many to be discussed here. Instead, we will focus on a few that are crucial for a leader. The more of these you display as a leader, the more your people will believe and trust in you: Honesty - Display sincerity, integrity, and candor in all your actions. Deceptive behavior will not inspire trust in your people. Competent - Your actions should be based on reason and moral principles. Do not make decisions based on childlike emotional desires or feelings. Forward-looking Set goals and have a vision of the future. The vision must be owned throughout the organization. Effective leaders envision what they want and how to get it. They habitually pick priorities stemming from their basic values. Inspiring - Display confidence in all that you do. By showing endurance in mental, physical, and spiritual stamina, you will inspire your people to reach for new heights. Take charge when necessary. Intelligent - Read, study, and seek challenging assignments. Fair-minded - Show fair treatment to all people. Prejudice is the enemy of justice. Display empathy by being sensitive to the feelings, values, interests, and well-being of others. Broad-minded - Seek out diversity. Courageous - Have the perseverance to accomplish a goal, regardless of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Display a confident calmness when under stress. Straightforward - Use sound judgment to make a good decision at the right time. Imaginative - Make timely and appropriate changes in thinking, plans, and methods. Show creativity by thinking of new and better goals, ideas, and solutions to problems. FIVE factor model of personality Among the available models of psychology, the five-factor theory is one promising model for practicability and applicability ( Digman, 1990). The Five Factor Model (also known as the "Big 5") is based on the idea that five main dimensions are necessary and sufficient for broadly describing human personality. The five-factor model is comprised of five personality dimensions (OCEAN): Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The five dimensions are held to be a complete description of personality. The big five personality traits are as follows: Neuroticism: a tendency to easily experience unpleasant emotions Extraversion: a tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others Agreeableness: a tendency to be compassionate rather than antagonistic towards others Conscientiousness: a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement Openness to experience: a tendency to enjoy art, new intellectual experiences, and ideas Implications of the five-factor model: Goldberg (1981) impressed with consistency of results and suggested "it should be possible to argue the case that any model for structuring individual differences will have to encompass- at some level-something like these 'big five' dimensions" (p. 159). The greatness of five-factor model lies in its compatibility with other major psychological theories. And also it is treated as complimentary to other theories including a theory that would seemingly be at the other end of the spectrum from the five-factor model, Freud's highly subjective theory of psychoanalysis. Although the five-factor model leaves much to be desired as far as the explanation of the numbers, it was shown that with the sliding scales associated with each of the five variables, the five-factor model was easily quantifiable. Applications areas: Many potential applications of the model and the personality inventory, including: Vocational Interests: Psychologists suggest that personality is associated with the kinds of careers people choose and how they function in these occupations. The idea is that people with certain characteristics will select and function better in some occupations than in others. Diagnosis of Personality Disorders: The five-factor model and the NEO-PI are seen as measuring the basic emotional, interpersonal, and motivational styles of people. Many kinds of psychopathology seen as consisting of exaggerations of normal personality traits (falling on a continuum). Treatment: With understanding of individual's personality, therapist in better position to anticipate problems and plan course of treatment. Also aid in selecting optimal form of therapy, i.e., individuals with different personalities may profit more or less from different forms of psychological treatment. What is intelligence Intelligence is a generic term for various cognitive abilities. It is classified into different components, depending on the intelligence theory (e.g., in his work "The Berlin Model of Intelligence", AO Jger lists: cognitive speed, memory, creativity, and reasoning to process verbal, numerical and figural material). General features of all intelligence definitions include: quality of solution and speed in resolving completely new (i.e., non-routine) tasks, also frequently defined as 'the ability to learn'. Overview of Sternberg's Triarchic Theory ( Sternberg, 1994): The triarchic theory of intelligence consists of three sub theories: (i) the componential sub theory which outlines the structures and mechanisms that underlie intelligent behavior categorized as meta cognitive, performance, or knowledge acquisition components, (ii) the experiential sub theory that proposes intelligent behavior be interpreted along a continuum of experience from novel to highly familiar tasks/situations, (iii) the contextual sub theory which specifies that intelligent behavior is defined by the socio-cultural context in which it takes place and involves adaptation to the environment, selection of better environments, and shaping of the present environment. Schematic representation of Triarchic theory; Sternberg believes that intelligence is comprised of three separate, though interrelated abilities: analytical, creative, and practical, which are as follows: Analytical try to solve familiar problems by using strategies that manipulate the elements of a problem or the relationship among the elements (e.g., comparing, analyzing). Creative try to solve new kinds of problems that require us to think about the problem and its elements in a new way (e.g., inventing, designing) Practical try to solve problems that apply what we know to everyday contexts (e.g., applying, using). Sternberg hypothesizes that intelligence relates to, and is demonstrated in, three different aspects: (1) the internal world of information processing, (2) experience and past learning, and (3) the external world of adapting to, shaping and selecting real-world environments. The Analytical sub theory has 3 components, viz; Metacomponents: These are higher-order mental processes used in planning, monitoring, and evaluating performance of a task; these are "executive" functions guide the use of other components. Performance components: These are mental processes used in the performance of a task; probably best measured by current intelligence tests Knowledge-Acquisition components: These are mental processes used in learning. Two-Facet Sub theory of Creative intelligence: According to Sternberg, the Creative Intelligence involves insights, synthesis and the ability to react to novel situations and stimuli. This he considers the experiential aspect of intelligence and reflects how an individual connects the internal world to external reality. And he proposed a Two-Facet Sub theory (Novelty & Automatization), which assumes that there are two broad classes of abilities associated with intelligence: novelty skills and automatization skills. A task measures intelligence if it requires the ability to deal with novel demands or the ability to automatize information processing (two ends of a continuum). Implications of the triarchic theory of intelligence Sternberg (1983) outlines the implications of the theory for skill training. The implications can be summarized in two ways: 1.Intelligence is demonstrated in two complimentary ways: a person's ability to deal with novelty or new aspects on one's environment and how quickly one make new information processing automatic. The triarchic theory further illustrates on intelligence as: Intelligence and Prior Knowledge (Experience and Past Learning) Dealing with Novelty: intelligence is the ability to learn and think within new conceptual systems, which can then be brought to bear upon already existing knowledge Automatizing Information Processing complex verbal, mathematical, and other tasks can feasibly be executed only because many of the operations involved in their performance have been automatized. 2.Triarchic theory also proposes that Intelligence is not only one's ability to adapt to one's environment; it also includes changing that environment or selecting a new one, which understood from the following contexts: Dealing With Real-world Contexts (External World) Adapting to Sometimes one displays one's intelligence by demonstrating an ability to adapt to the situation or context one finds oneself in. This is the primary aspect of intelligence that is considered by psychometricians, learning theorists, and other cognitivists such as Piaget Shaping Sometimes it is necessary to demonstrate one's intelligence by shaping or changing the environment so that it better meets one's needs. Vygotsky and dynamical systems theorists focus on this aspect of intelligence. Selecting There are times when it is necessary to demonstrate one's intelligence by selecting an alternate environment or context within which to live and work. Not all environments should be adapted to and some are not worth trying to change. Intelligence and stress: Cognitive resources theory Cognitive Resource Theory predicts that 'Stress affects the relationship between intelligence and decision quality'. When there is low stress, then intelligence is fully functional and makes an optimal contribution. However, during high stress, a natural intelligence not only makes no difference, but it may also have a negative effect. One reason for this may be that an intelligent person seeks rational solutions, which may not be available (and may be one of the causes of stress). In such situations, a leader who is inexperienced in 'gut feel' decisions is forced to rely on this unfamiliar approach. Another possibility is that the leader retreats within him/herself, to think hard about the problem, leaving the group to their own devices. Emotional intelligence and leadership: Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth. - Mayer & Salovey, 1997 Salovey and Mayer defined emotional intelligence as the: "Ability to monitor one's own and other's feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions." (1990). Measuring of Emotional Intelligence: The Mayer-Salovey ability model of emotional intelligence defines emotional intelligence as a set of skills or abilities. These skills can be measured just like other skills or other abilities. There are three ways to score such ability: consensus, expert and target. The best method to score ability-based measures of emotional intelligence is to use what is called the consensus method. If people recognize a facial expression as indicating fear, then that qualifies as expressing fear. Consensus works because emotions convey important information, information that even has a survival value. As Darwin's research indicates, there is even consensus of emotional expression across different species, allowing to correctly recognize anger in a cat, a dog, and in humans. The famous EI measurement models: The EQ-i (Emotional Quotient Inventory), The MSCEIT (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test), And the ECI (Emotional Competence Inventory). One of the research findings (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 1999) is that these three methods - expert, target, and consensus - generally agree with one another. Implications of Emotional Intelligence: There have been many claims about the ability of EI measures to predict job performance. However, these claims are not supported by research (Barrett et al., 2001; Mayer et al., 1999). Regardless of the view of EI, there is inadequate data to justify using measures of EI as selection tools. Claims have also been made about increasing EI through training. Depending on the view of EI (e.g., ability-based model), training may not be an option. Mayer and his colleagues argue that you can not train "emotional intelligence" but you are able to provide people with "emotional knowledge" (Mayer, personal communication, March 22, 2002). This knowledge may help people to better perceive and understand emotions, but it will not necessarily increase their emotional intelligence. Bar-On argues that EI, unlike personality, can be trained. However, there is little evidence that EI may be trained to any greater degree than personality. Conclusion: The study on "Personality traits & Leadership" observes the feasibility of development of leadership under the light of different theories like, Five-factor model of personality, triarchic theory of intelligence, cognitive theory relevance to intelligence and stress and relation between emotional intelligence and Leadership. The study identifies, different personality traits covered under the five-factor model and their observation for industry needs. Then the study observes the implications of Triarchic model under the observation of two facet sub theory of creative intelligence, explaining the phenomena dealing with novelty and dealing with real time contexts for leadership qualities. The study finally observes that to develop the leader ship qualities, one cannot be trained but one can be imparted of knowledge of emotional intelligence to cope with the situations. References: Citation: Huitt, W. (2002). Intelligence. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved:[23 June 2005], from < http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/intell.html.>. Emmerling, R. J. & Goleman, D. (2003). Emotional Intelligence: Issues and Common Misunderstandings. Issues in Emotional Intelligence, Retrieved:23 June 2005. Available from . Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books Goleman, D. (1998) Working with emotional intelligence. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Gardner, H. (1999, February). Who owns intelligence The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved: June 2005, Available from http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99feb/intel.htm. John, O. P. (1990). 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