Management Series: Understanding Personality in Organization

 PERSONALITY & VALUES 

Learning outcomes:

1. Describe personality, the way it is measured, and the factors that shape it.
2. Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality framework and the Big Five model.
3. Describe the differences between person-job fit and person-organization fit

Personality and values are major shapers of behavior.  In order for managers to predict behavior, they must know the personalities of those who work for them. 

Personality is often defined by characteristics such as outgoing or charming.  However, psychologists define personality as the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system. In the context of Organizational Behavior (OB), personality refers to the unique and relatively stable patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that characterize an individual. It encompasses a wide range of individual differences, including traits, behaviors, attitudes, and emotional responses. Understanding personality is crucial in OB because it plays a significant role in shaping how people interact within organizations, make decisions, and perform their roles.

Characteristics of Personality

1. Individual Differences: Personality recognizes that people are not uniform in their responses to the same situations. Instead, individuals have distinct personality traits and characteristics that influence how they perceive and respond to organizational events and challenges.
2. Stability and Consistency: While personalities can evolve over time, they are generally considered to be relatively stable and enduring. This means that an individual's personality traits and tendencies tend to persist over the long term, making them an important factor in predicting behavior within organizations.

Impact of Personality on Behavior

Personality influences how individuals behave in the workplace. For example, someone with a high level of conscientiousness is likely to be organized, dependable, and detail-oriented, which can affect their work performance and reliability. Conversely, someone with a high level of extroversion may be more inclined to seek social interactions and take on leadership roles.

1. Work-Related Attitudes: Personality also plays a role in shaping an individual's attitudes and perceptions at work. For instance, a person's level of job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, and willingness to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors can be influenced by their personality traits.
2. Interpersonal Dynamics: Personality affects how people interact with others in the workplace. It can impact communication styles, conflict resolution approaches, and the ability to work effectively in teams. Understanding the personalities of team members can help managers build more cohesive and productive teams.
3. Leadership and Management: Personality traits can be critical in leadership and management roles. Different leadership styles may be more effective depending on the leader's personality and the personalities of their subordinates. Understanding these dynamics is essential for effective leadership and team management.
4. Person-Job Fit: Organizations often seek to match individuals with the right personality traits to specific job roles. This concept, known as person-job fit, aims to ensure that employees are well-suited to their roles, which can lead to greater job satisfaction and performance.
5. Person-Organization Fit: Beyond person-job fit, personality can also influence how well an individual fits with the overall culture and values of the organization. Ensuring a good person-organization fit can enhance employee engagement and retention.

 

Theories of Personality

• Freudian Theory (Psychodynamic)

This theory, developed by Sigmund Freud, suggests that personality is influenced by unconscious processes and early childhood experiences. In an OB course, students might learn how aspects of psychodynamic theory, such as defense mechanisms and the id, ego, and superego, can help explain workplace behavior. For instance, how unconscious conflicts might manifest in interpersonal dynamics or decision-making within an organization.

• Trait Theory

Trait theory focuses on identifying and categorizing specific traits that describe an individual's personality. The Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) are often central to this theory. OB courses may discuss how these traits impact work-related behaviors, like how conscientiousness is associated with job performance or how extroversion affects leadership styles.

 

Personality Traits and the Big Five

Personality traits are enduring characteristics that describe an individual's typical patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. They are central to understanding how people differ from one another, and they play a significant role in shaping behavior and interactions within organizations. One widely recognized framework for studying personality traits is the Big Five Model, also known as the Five-Factor Model (FFM). It identifies five broad dimensions of personality:

1. Openness to Experience: This trait reflects a person's willingness to explore new ideas, experiences, and ways of thinking. Individuals high in openness tend to be creative, imaginative, and open-minded. In the workplace, they may be more adaptable to change and more likely to generate innovative solutions to problems.
2. Conscientiousness: Conscientiousness is characterized by traits such as organization, reliability, and self-discipline. Individuals with high conscientiousness are often diligent, punctual, and detail-oriented. They are likely to excel in tasks that require precision and reliability, making them valuable employees.
3. Extroversion: Extroversion relates to the extent to which individuals are outgoing, social, and assertive. Extroverts tend to be talkative, energetic, and enthusiastic in social situations. In organizational settings, they may excel in roles that involve networking, leadership, and public speaking.
4. Agreeableness: Agreeableness measures a person's interpersonal tendencies, including their degree of cooperativeness, empathy, and friendliness. People high in agreeableness are often compassionate, warm, and considerate. They tend to work well in teams and maintain positive working relationships.
5. Neuroticism (Emotional Stability): Neuroticism refers to an individual's emotional stability and resilience to stress. High neuroticism is associated with traits like anxiety, insecurity, and moodiness, whereas low neuroticism reflects emotional stability and a calm demeanor. In the workplace, emotionally stable individuals may cope better with pressure and maintain a more positive attitude.

Applications in Organizational Behavior:

Understanding the Big Five traits and other personality traits is valuable in various aspects of Organizational Behavior:

1. Hiring and Selection: Organizations often use personality assessments to evaluate job applicants. By considering the fit between an individual's personality traits and the requirements of the job, employers can make more informed hiring decisions.
2. Team Dynamics: Recognizing the diverse personalities within a team can help managers build well-balanced teams. Combining individuals with different trait profiles can enhance problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration.
3. Leadership and Management: Effective leadership often depends on understanding and adapting to the personalities of team members. For example, leaders may adjust their communication styles and motivational approaches based on the personalities of their subordinates.
4. Conflict Resolution: Personality traits can influence how individuals respond to conflict. Managers and team leaders can use this knowledge to facilitate constructive conflict resolution and minimize disruptive conflicts.
5. Employee Development: Personalized development plans can be tailored to an individual's personality traits. For instance, employees with high conscientiousness may benefit from structured training programs, while those high in extroversion may thrive in roles that involve client interactions.

The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a widely used self-report questionnaire designed to assess an individual's personality based on the Big Five personality traits. These traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (often abbreviated as OCEAN). The BFI is known for its brevity and efficiency while providing a reliable and valid measure of the Big Five traits, making it a popular tool in both research and applied settings, including personality assessment in organizational contexts. 

• • Try it yourself: http://openpsychometrics.org/tests/IPIP-BFFM/ 

 

Other Methods of Personality Assessment

Self-report questionnaires are the most common tools for assessing personality. Individuals respond to a series of statements or questions that measure various personality traits. Examples of widely used self-report questionnaires include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and the Big Five Inventory (BFI),

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used personality instrument worldwide.  Participants are classified within four scales to determine 1 of 16 possible personality types.  These types are broken down into four dichotomies.  The first is extroverts who tend to be sociable and assertive versus introverts who tend to be quiet and shy.  The second dichotomy is sensing and intuitive.  Sensors are practical and orderly where intuits utilize unconscious processes.  The third dichotomy is thinking and feeling.  Thinking focuses on using reason and logic where feeling utilizes values and emotions.  The final dichotomy is judging and perceiving.  Judgers want orders and structure whereas perceivers are more flexible and spontaneous. These categories, while insightful, are not related to job performance.
• The Holland Hexagon Test: The Holland Occupational Themes is a theory of personality that focuses on career and vocational choice. It groups people on the basis of their suitability for six different categories of occupations. The six types yield the RIASEC acronym, by which the theory is also commonly known.
• Try it yourself: https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/RIASEC/

The Big Five Model

This model of personality has an impressive body of research that supports it.  The model (particularly one factor, conscientiousness) appears to be positively related to job performance and can be used as an employment selection or screening too.

a. Extraversion. Deals with the comfort level of relationships. 

Like the MBTI, this is contrasted with introversion. Scoring high in this factor means the respondent is more gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet. Extraverts tend to be happy in their jobs but may be impulsive and absent themselves from work to take on some other, more sensational tasks.

b. Agreeableness. Measures deference towards others. 

High scorers are cooperative, warm, and trusting while low scores are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic. Agreeable workers are less likely to be involved in drugs and excessive drinking.

c. Conscientiousness. Measures reliability. 

High scorers are responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Low scorers are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. Not surprisingly, this is the key determinant of job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) on the Big Five. However, conscientious people also tend not to take risks and may find organizational change difficult to handle.

d. Emotional Stability (or Neuroticism – its opposite). Measures ability to handle stress

The more stable a person, the better he (or she) can handle stress. People with high emotional stability tend to become, self-confident, and secure. They often have higher life and job satisfaction.  Low emotional stability scorers tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure. Yet, surprisingly, low-scoring people make better and faster decisions when in a bad mood than do stable people.  

e. Openness to Experience. 

Measures the range of interests and fascination with novelty, a proxy for creativity. People who score low on this factor tend to be conventional and enjoy familiar circumstances. High scorers tend to be creative, curious, and artistically sensitive.

People high in this factor deal better with organizational change and are more adaptable

Values

Values represent basic convictions that make judgments about what is the best mode of conduct or end-state of existence. Value systems represent individual values and prioritizes them based on how important the particular value is to the individual and how intense their feelings are about that particularly value.  The way individuals set up their values in order of importance is relatively stable over time and set the foundation for many work outcomes such as attitudes, motivation and behavior.  In addition, values are important in the workplace because they can influence an individual’s perception and cloud their objectivity.  

The RokeachValue Survey was created by Milton Rokeach.  It consists of two sets of values, terminal values and instrumental values. Terminal values describe the desired values/goals a person would like to keep/achieve through their lifetime.  Instrumental values are the preferred modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal values. 

Values vary between groups and can cause trouble when group members hold different values and negotiation is needed.

LINKING AN INDIVIDUAL’S PERSONALITY AND VALUES TO THE WORKPLACE

Managers have become concerned with matching both the personality and the values of an employee with those of the organization.  The hope is to identify workers who are both flexible and committed to the organization.

 

Personality and value studies are important to the field of organizational behavior because they have been linked to workplace outcomes.  The person-job fit theory developed by John Holland has been critical to thinking about how people fit with a specific job.  Holland classified people into six personality types utilizing a vocational preference inventory.  

Through the study of personality it has become clear that there are intrinsic differences in personality between people.  Given that there are a number of different jobs it is logical that people in jobs congruent with their personalities would be more satisfied in their work.

When the personality is matched with the type of occupation then there are stronger positive work outcomes. 

This idea can be further linked to the workplace by looking at person-organization fit.  The employee’s personality needs to fit with the organizational culture.  When employees find organizations that match their values they are more likely to be selected and correspondingly be more satisfied with their work.  The big five personality types are often helpful in matching the individuals with organizational culture.