Workshop Roadmap

Management Styles & Policies Power & Politics Level of Effort of the job Job related Stress

Values/ & Beliefs

Willingness to act (Motivation)

Personality

Perception

Direct/ Indirect Job Satisfaction

Absenteeism Turnover Discipline

Selfefficacy

Learning

Job related conflicts

P R O D U T I V I T Y

Ability

Personality

Personality is the relatively stable set of biological and psychological characteristics that influences the way an individual interacts with his or her environment.

Personality and OB

Personality has important place in OB. It is an important factor in accounting for why workers act the way they do in the organization and why they have favorable or unfavorable attitudes towards their jobs and organizations. It also affects through created perception, the job satisfaction, stress level, decision making, leadership, and some aspects of job performance.

What determines the Personality?

Personality is believed to be determined by two factors:

Nature
(Biological Heritage)

Personality

Nurture

(Life Experiences)

Heredity and environment affect personality development not only separately but jointly; they must interact to produce any meaningful personality characteristic.

The complex set of genes we are endowed with provides for our potential development whereas the full potential of a person is achieved or not achieved according to the demands and requirements of the social environment.

Dimensions of Personality
The Big Five Model
Extraversion Emotional Stability Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness to Experience

Sociable, Talkative Vs Withdrawn, Shy

Stable, Confident Vs Depressed, Anxious

Tolerant, Cooperative Vs Cold, Rude

Dependable, Responsible Vs Careless, Impulsive

Curious, Imaginative Vs Dull, Unimaginative

Extraversion

Extraversion refers to the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self. Extraverts tend to enjoy human interactions and to be enthusiastic, talkative, and assertive. They take pleasure in activities that involve large social gatherings, such as parties, community activities, public demonstrations,

An extraverted person is likely to enjoy time spent with people and find less reward in time spent alone. An extravert is energized when around other people and tends to be bored and "fade" when alone. When given the chance, an extravert will talk with someone else rather than sit alone and think.

Politics, sales, managing, brokering are fields

Conversely, Introversion is "the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life". They generally do not need to seek out excitement in others because they are already stimulated with their own thoughts and imagination. They often take pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, drawing, watching movies, and using computers, and tend to be

They are not necessarily loners, but they tend to have smaller circles of friends, and are less likely to thrive on making new social contacts. Nor the introversion is the same as shyness. Introverts choose solitary over social activities by preference, whereas shy people avoid social encounters out of fear. The artists, writers, sculptors, composers, and inventors are all highly introverted.

Emotional Stability

The degree to which a person has appropriate emotional control. People with high emotional stability are selfconfident and have high self-esteem, and tend to be calm, even tempered, and less likely
to feel tense or rattled.

Such people, though are low in negative emotion, they are not necessarily high on positive emotion.

Those with lower emotional stability tend toward self-doubt and depression, and
exhibit poor emotional adjustment in the form of anger, anxiety, and depression.

They respond more poorly to environmental stress, and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening, and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult.
On the other side, they may have trouble controlling urges and delaying gratification.

Agreeableness

This personality dimensions reflects the individual differences in concern for cooperation and social harmony. People who score high on this dimension are considerate, friendly, generous, and helpful. They also have an optimistic view of human nature, and tend to believe that most people are honest, decent, and trustworthy.

Less agreeable people tend to be cold and aloof.

People scoring low on agreeableness place self-interest above getting along with others. They are generally less concerned with others' well-being, report less empathy, and are therefore less likely to go out of their way to help others. They are more likely to compete than to cooperate. Their skepticism about other people's motives may cause them to be suspicious and unfriendly, hence tend to be manipulative in their social relationships.

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness is the trait of being painstaking and careful, or the quality of acting according to the dictates of one's conscience.

It includes such elements as self-discipline, carefulness, thoroughness, organization, deliberation, and need for achievement.

More conscientious people are responsible, dependable, achievement oriented and positively motivated. When taken to an extreme, they may also be workaholics, perfectionists, and compulsive in their behavior.

People who are low on conscientiousness are not necessarily lazy or immoral, but they tend to be more laid back, less goal oriented, and less driven by success.
Such individuals tend to be unable to motivate themselves to perform a task that they would like to

Openness to experience
Openness involves active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, and intellectual curiosity. More open tend towards creativity and innovation.

People who score low on openness are considered to be closed to experience and favor status quo.

They tend to be traditional in their outlook and behavior, prefer familiar routines to new experiences, and generally have a narrower range of interests.

Personality A Type individuals

Individuals who are Type A have an intense desire to achieve, extremely competitive have a sense of urgency are impatient and can be hostile.
Such individuals have a strong need to get a lot done in a short time period and can be difficult to get along with because they are so driven.

Because Type As can be difficult to get along with, however, they may not be effective in situations that require a lot of interaction with others. Consistent with this observation, one study found that Type A managers were more likely to have conflicts with their subordinates and with coworkers than were Type B managers.

Given the Type A drive to get so much done, Type As would seem to be ideal workers from the organizations perspective, especially in situations where a lot of work needs to be done in a short time. However, Type A workers are not particularly good team players and often work best alone. In addition, Type As may get frustrated in long-term situations or projects because

Type A individuals are sometimes more likely than Type Bs to have coronary heart disease. Empirical studies have identified that most of the heart attack patients were very impatient, sometimes hostile, and always in a hurry and watching the clock.

Personality-Situation debate

Impact of personality on the organizational behavior should not be exaggerated.

Rather individual behavior should be taken as a result of interaction between personality and the situation. Personality will have the most impact in weak situations; the situation with loosely defined roles, few rules, and weak reinforcement and punishment contingencies etc. the situations in which the persons have more choice about how to perform a job. In such situation personality-job match matters.

 In

strong situations, however, with more defined roles, rules, and contingencies, personality exerts less impact.

Diagrammatically

Personality

Feelings Thoughts Attitudes Behaviors

Situation

Certain cautions regarding impact of Personality on OB

People have variety of personality characteristics. Excessive typing of people does not help to appreciate their unique potential to contribute to an organization. There is no one best personality. Different personality characteristics are useful in different organizational situations.

Personality of the organizations

Personality of whole organization is largely a product of the personalities of its members, determined through Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) Framework Effect, (Ben Schneider 1987).

Individuals with similar personalities tend to be attracted to an organization (attraction), and hired by it (selection), and individuals with other types of personality tend to leave the organization (attrition)

As a result of interplay among attraction, selection, and attrition over long time, some consistency and similarity among the personalities of the members within an organization may emerge. This consistency of personalities among the members ultimately gives rise to personality of the organization.

Personality of the organization can be better perpetuated through hiring the employees through aptitude & psychological tests i.e. hiring the employees with their personalities matching to the personality of the organization. However, because of natural flexibility, however, the individuals can withstand the ASA effect.

Discussion Questions
Define the term Personality of the individuals and describe its significance from organization behaviors point of view. 2. Describe Big-Five dimensions of personality with their organizational behavioral implications. 3. What are the features of the A Type personality? What are its organizational behavioral implications? 4. Interaction between personality type and the situation is best elaborator of the individual performance in a given time than relying upon the personality type alone. Discuss.
1.