Prospects of personality

We pondered on the aspect of personality last week. Personalities of people play a pivotal role in their personal and professional fronts. Let's discuss further the salient features of personality.

Recap of personality

Personality can also be viewed as the sum total of characteristics that differentiate people or the stability in a person's behaviour across different situations. During a given situation, one may fight and the other may take flight. The response reveals their personalities.

As we saw last week, a variety of attempts were made to measure personality in a scientific manner. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is the most popular personality measurement in the world. It is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.

Work environments influence how comfortable you are at your job. Someone with a preference for introversion, for example, who has to do a lot of detailed work or think through a problem, may find it disruptive to be in an environment that is too loud or where a lot of interaction is needed. When you know this about yourself, you can make arrangements to do your work in a more suitable location or at a time when there is less activity and interference.

Even when circumstances make it necessary for you to do work that you have not chosen or which you must do as part of your overall job description, knowledge and understanding of type of personality can help you discover and use your strengths to accomplish the work. When you find an unsatisfactory job fit, you can examine the reasons and seek solutions based on your preferences.

When you have an opportunity to take a new path in your work, it can help you analyse your past work and consider what new direction can best fit your preferences.

Big Five

Personality researchers have proposed that there are five basic dimensions of personality. These are often referred to as the Big Five. Previous trait theorists had suggested a number of possible traits, including Gordon Allport's list of 4,000 personality traits, Raymond Cattell's 16 personality factors and Hans Eysenck's three-factor theory.

Today, many researchers agree that they are five core personality traits. Evidence of this theory has been growing over the past 50 years, beginning with the research of D. W. Fiske (1949) and later expanded upon by other researchers including Norman (1967), Smith (1967), Goldberg (1981), and McCrae and Costa (1987).

The 'big five' are broad categories of personality traits. While there is a significant body of literature supporting the five-factor model of personality, researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension.

However, the five categories are usually described as:

Extraversion. This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.

Agreeableness. This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other pro-social behaviour.

Conscientiousness. Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviour. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organised and mindful of details.

Emotional stability. People high in this trait tend to experience greater control of their emotions such as anger. It involves a person's steadiness of mood, ability to withstand minor setbacks, failures, difficulties, and other stress.

Openness to experience. Openness involves active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety and intellectual curiosity.

The above five dimensions represent broad areas of personality. Research has demonstrated that these groupings of characteristics tend to occur together in many people. For example, people who are sociable tend to be talkative. However, these traits do not always occur together.

These are not 'types' of personalities, but dimensions of personality. So someone's personality is the combination of each of their Big Five personality characteristics. For example, someone may be very sociable (high extraversion), not very friendly (low agreeableness), hard working (high conscientiousness), easily stressed (low emotional stability) and extremely creative (high intellect).

Way forward

It was Thales, the first philosopher in Greek tradition, who said, "Know thyself". Being aware of your personality is one sure way of discovering you better. Such an awareness can also be extended to areas such as recruitment to ensure a proper person-position match. It also helps to enrich our relationships in personal and professional fronts, in knowing someone better.

The fundamental message here is to ensure the match between 'who you are' versus 'what you do'. Satisfied and fruitful carriers are built around people handling things in areas where they have a flare. What it says is simple: 'Do what you are'.

The writer is the Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Management. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Division of Management and Entrepreneurship, Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, USA.