OTHER KEY PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS RELEVANT TO WORK PLACE

Some of the important personality factors that determine what kinds of behaviors are exhibited at work include need patterns, locus of control, introversion and extroversion, tolerance of ambiguity, self-esteem and self-concept, authoritarianism and dogmatism, Machiavellianism, Type A or B Personality and work ethic.

Authoritarianism and Dogmatism:

People who are likely to have authoritarian orientation tend to use their power more aggressively towards their subordinates and create a very defensive climate in the department, while at the same time they are being very submissive or docile towards their supervisors. Dogmatism refers to the extent to which people are flexible or rigid in dealing others. Managers who are exhibiting these traits are likely to be detached from others and people show much of hatredness in them.

A combination of high authoritarianism and dogmatism is obviously not conducive to creativity and organizational effectiveness since new ideas that people at lower levels in the system have will neither be listened to nor implemented. Certain societies tend to accept authority much better than others, and hence authoritarianism can be traced to needs of dependency in members in some cultures who feel comfortable when they are ‘told’ the ways in which things have to be carried out in their work.

Machiavellianism:

This refers to the extent to which people are manipulative and tactic in achieving one’s own goals. These people strongly believe that ends can justify means. People who are high Machiavellian tend to be cool, willing to twist and turn facts to influence others and try to gain control of people, events, and situations by manipulating the system to their advantage. High Machiavellians may be successful only for a short period but in long run they tend to be distrusted and disliked by many in the department and finally they may be ineffective.

High-Machiavellians manipulates more, win more, are persuaded less and have a grater influence over other people than do low-Machiavellians. Yet these High-Machiavellians outcomes are moderated by situational factors.

It has been found that High- Machiavellians flourish:

· when they interact face-to-face with others rather than indirectly

· when the situation has a minimum number of rules and regulations, thus allowing latitude for improvisation

· where emotional involvement with details irrelevant to winning distracts low-

Machiavellianism

· when forming coalitions which they use to their advantage.

The following are the strategies to protect against the manipulative actions of High-

Machiavellians:

i) Expose them to others: Expose the broken promises, manipulative strategies and lies of high-Machiavellian to others.

ii) Pay attention to what people do, not to what they say: High-Machiavellians make great promises and are great persuaders, so pay attention to the action that a person carries out and avoid being swayed by smooth promises

iii) Avoid situations that give high-Machiavellians the edge: Do not make decisions quickly where emotions are high and a person puts forward a persuasive argument and pushes for an immediate decision. Try not to face this person on a one-to-one basis.

Invites others to participate in the meeting. :

Risk Taking

This refers to the extent to which people are willing to take chances. This propensity to assume or to avoid risk has been shown to have an effect on their decision making capabilities and information gathering process. High risk taking managers made more rapid decision and used less information in making their choices than did the low risk taking managers.

The requirement of Risk taking propensity varies from the different types of job demands.

For instance, a high risk taking propensity may lead to more effective performance for a stockbroker in brokerage firm than an accountant whose job demands more cautious approach in dealing each and every one of the things. An accountant performing auditing activities is expected to have low-risk taking propensity as his nature of job demands to follow a book of rules and regulations.

Type A and Type B Personality:

This refers to the extent to which people tend exhibit certain characteristics. Type A person feels a chronic sense of time urgency, are highly achievement oriented, exhibit a competitive drive and are impatient when their work is slowed down for any reason.

Type B persons are easygoing individuals who do not have sense of time urgency, and who do not experience the competitive drive.

Type A Mangers do operate under moderate to high level of stress. They subject themselves to more or less continuous time pressure, creating for themselves a life of deadlines. These characteristics result in some rather specific behavior outcomes. For example, Type A people are fast workers because they emphasize quantity over quality. In managerial positions, Type A executives demonstrate their competitiveness by working long hours and not infrequently making poor decisions because they make them too quickly. Type A’s are also rarely creative. Because of their concern with quantity and speed, they rely on past experiences when faced with problems. They do not allocate the time that is necessary to develop unique solutions to new problems.

Which category of people – Type A or Type B more successful in organization? The research results reported that great sales people are usually Tape A category. But the senior executives are likely to be Type B category. The main reason is that Type A people are usually trade off quality of effort for quantity. Promotions in corporate and professional organization usually go to those who are wise rather than to those who are merely hasty, to those who are tactful rather than to those who are hostile, and to those who are creative rather than to those who are merely agile in competitive strife.

The following are their typical characteristics of Type A and Type B people. Type A people are likely to more chances to get coronary heart diseases than Type B people.

Type ‘A’ Personality

· Competitive

· High Need for Achievement

· Aggressive

· Works Fast

· Impatient

· Restless

· Extremely Alert

· Tense Facial Muscles

· Constant Time Pressure

Type ‘B’ Personality

· Able to Take Time to Enjoy Leisure

· Not Preoccupied with Achievement

· Easy Going Works at Steady Pace

· Seldom Impatient

· Relaxed

· Not Easily Frustrated

· Moves Slowly

· Seldom Lacks Enough Time

Tolerance for Ambiguity

This dimension refers to the extent to which individuals are threatened by or have difficulty coping with situations that are ambiguous, where change occurs rapidly or predictably, where information is inadequate or unclear or where complexity exists. This personality characteristic indicates the level of uncertainty that people can tolerate with out experiencing undue stress and can still function effectively. Managers with higher tolerance of ambiguity scores are more likely to be entrepreneurial in their actions, to screen out less information in a complex environment, and to choose specialties in their occupations those possess less-structured tasks. It is also reported that individuals who are more tolerant of ambiguity have more difficulty focusing on a single important element of information – they are inclined to pay attention to a variety of items – and they may have somewhat less ability to concentrate without being distracted by interruptions.

There are three dimensions in Tolerance of Ambiguity. They are Novelty, Complexity and Insolubility.

• Tolerance of Ambiguity towards Novelty: This refers to the extent to which you are tolerant of new, unfamiliar information or situations.
• Tolerance of Ambiguity towards Complexity: This refers to the extent to which you are tolerant of multiple, distinctive or unrelated information.
• Tolerance of Ambiguity towards Insolubility: This refers to the extent to which you are tolerant of problems that are very difficult to solve alternative solutions are not evident, information is unavailable or the problems compensate seem unrelated to each other.

In general, the more tolerant people are of novelty, complexity, and insolubility, the more likely they are to succeed as managers in information-rich, ambiguous environment. They are less overwhelmed by these ambiguous circumstances.

Work Ethic Orientation:

This refers to the extent to which people are committed to work and involved in their activities. Extreme work ethic values could lead to traits of workoholism and workaholic people tend to give predominant interest to work which might lead to premature burnout and health problems such as hypertension, anxiety etc. Some individuals are highly workoriented while others try to do the minimum that is necessary go get by without being fired on the job. The extremely work ethic oriented person gets greatly involved in the job and lives up to being described as ‘living, eating and breathing the job’. Extreme work ethic values could lead to traits of ‘workoholism’ when work becomes to be considered as the only primary motive for living with very little outside interests.