Overview of Personality Types

Organizational behavior is the study of the behavior and manners of the organizational members. It also decides upon the interaction of the organizational members. The study will assess my personality type through Myers Briggs Profile, Costa & McCrae Big 5 Personality Traits, McClelland Needs Analysis and Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. The study will give a brief overview of my personality types. Apart from that, the study will also critically analyze my personality types in respect to the leadership qualities. On the other hand, the study will also set a SMART action plan for improving my weakness of my personality type.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator indicates an introspective self-report questionnaire, which indicates differing psychological preference of the people. It assesses the perception of the people around them and demonstrates the way they make decision (Seol and Park 2015). MBTI speculates the human experience of the world using 16 personality types dividing them into the categories like extrovert vs introvert, intuition vs sensing, judgment vs perception and feelings vs thinking. My personality type falls in the category of ENFJ, which indicates the personality like extrovert, intuition, feeling and judging.

My personality type is ENFJ, which signifies that I have tremendous charisma and power to manipulate others with excellent interpersonal skills and grand schemes. I have excellent entrepreneurial skills and decisiveness. The thinner psychological boundaries can often bring me at risk of being hurt by someone.

Big 5 factors assess the personality of a person based on five factors like openness, consciousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Openness assessed the degree of creativity, intellectual curiosity and preference for novelty (Judge and Zapata 2015). Consciousness is the tendency of the people to be dependable and organized. On the other hand, extraversion assesses the energy level, assertiveness and positive emotion of the people. Agreeableness and Neuroticism defines the cooperativeness and anxiety level of the people.

I have scored high degree in openness, consciousness, extroversion and agreeableness (refer to Appendix 2). Moreover, I am highly open to new ideas, adventurous, cooperative and orderly. However, I have scored low at neuroticism, where I am little carefree.

McClelland Needs Analysis expounds on three acquired needs, which drive the motivation level of the people. These three factors are achievement, power and affiliation. Achievement oriented people seeks for higher achievement and realistic goals. On the other hand, affiliation-oriented people are highly motivated in harmonious relationship (Hrci and Ulrich 2017). The power need oriented people want to influence people through either personal power or institutional power.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator

I have high score for the needs of achievement, where I am highly inclined towards achieving realistic goals. I always like to feel accepted by other people and like to work in harmonious relationship. Furthermore, my inclination towards organizing the activities of others makes me able to influence others.

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument assesses the behavior of the people to manage the conflicting situation. This model has explored five distinctive modes of the people towards handling complex and conflicting situation, which are like competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating and avoiding (Riasi and Asadzadeh 2015).

I have high score for accommodating and collaborative. High score in these two modes assess my ability to be cooperative and assertive. Moreover, I want to find solution for mitigating the conflicts, which satisfies the concerns for both conflicting parties.

MBTI personality test helps the people to analyze their personality and their interaction with others. According to Park, Blenkinsopp and Park (2014), Myer Briggs personality test assess 16 types of personality in combination with each other based on the factors like Extroversion, Intuition, Sensing, Thinking and Judging. On the other hand, Mena Report (2015) opined that MBTI test facilitates in understanding the personality types of the employees. It tests potentiality of the employees towards becoming a successful leader. As per this personality assessment model, extrovert and collaborative persons are more likely to suite for the position of a leader. However, introverted people should not be excluded from the position of leader, as they also have some unique sensitivity to understand the people around them.

As per this self-assessment model, I am an ENFJ type person. According to this personality type, I have tremendous charisma and interpersonal skills to influence others. The unique salesmanship and benevolent pedagogues for humanity facilitates me to mix up with people easily. I am quite extrovert and collaborative as per this personality type. I have strong communication skills to interact with people flexibly and draw their attention towards me. Such personality type will help me to become a successful leader in future. As per Lussier et al. (2013), the first and foremost requirement of a leader is the ability to communicate and positive attitude. My personality type also demonstrates that I am quite interactive and communicative, which math with the requirement of the leader. On the other hand, Napach (2016) pointed out that an effective leader must have strong entrepreneurial skills and decisiveness to take proper decision about leading people. As per this personality type, I have strong entrepreneurial skills and tremendous decisiveness to take strong and effective decision to manage people. However, I am little bit emotional rather than being thinking person. Hence, I can be easily hurt by someone or fall in risky situation, which can hamper my leadership skills.

Big 5 Factors

Big 5 personality types define five distinctive personalities of people in terms of extroversion, agreeableness, consciousness, openness and neuroticism. This model is extremely useful in decision upon the leadership qualities within a person. The extroversion personality type is extremely necessary within an effective leader, which assess the enthusiasm and friendly approach of the people. On the other hand, openness is associated with the creative power of a successful leader, whereas consciousness assesses the orderly manner and hardworking capability of the people.

As per the self-assessment of Big 5 model, I have strong inclination towards being extrovert, open, conscious and agreeable. However, I have lower degree for neuroticism, which sometimes makes me anxious and angry. According to Monzani, Ripoll and Peiro (2015), an effective leader is highly interactive, flexible and friendly in his/her approach for understanding and managing other people. Such personalities help them in assessing the understanding people to manage them properly. As per this personality assessment model, I am quite extrovert and ambitious and friendly with other people. I am more likely to have active social life, which will also help me to understand the other employees in my organization. Hence, such personality will facilitate me in managing the people properly being an effective leader in future. On the other hand, Almandeel (2017) opined that great leader must be open and adaptable to new things for bringing innovation in business. They should also have orderly manner to get things done in proper way. As this model, I am highly open to new ideas and like to have creative ideas, which will make me an excellent leader in future by fostering innovation in my organization. However, I am little bit overly emotional, which can make me hurt by people by hampering my leadership quality.

McClelland Needs analysis test assesses the specific needs of the individuals, which they achieve over the time. Fulfillment of such needs motivates and drives the employees towards better performance. This assessment model analyzes three types of specific needs like achievement, power and affiliation. All these needs also assess the leadership qualities of the people.

As per this assessment model, I am highly achievement-oriented person. According to Mihalcea (2014), effective leaders should have the passion and courage to achieve realistic goals towards leading organizational success. Hence, being an achievement-oriented person, I can be a successful leader in future, where I will be able to achieve the realistic goals of my organization. On the other hand, Chen (2017) opined that great and successful leaders are always willing to embrace innovative business ideas for creating business uniqueness. As per this model, I am highly open to new ideas and think about abstract matters. Such adventurous and creative power will help me to think beyond the traditional ways for fostering organizational uniqueness. My hardworking capabilities and orderly manner also adds to the potentiality of my leadership qualities. Apart from that, my strong affiliation and power will help me in make harmonious relationship with others and influence them. It will enhance my interaction power, which will in turn enhance my leadership quality.

McClelland Needs Analysis

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument assesses the ability of people towards handing complex situation. In contemporary diversified workplace, conflicting situation is most likely to arise with the differing thoughts of the employees. In such situation, an effective leader should have strong personality towards handling the conflicting situation in an orderly manner. As per this model, I have high score for accommodating and collaborating personality. Moreover, I am highly cooperative and often neglect my own concern for satisfying the concerns of others. Such personality will help me in becoming employee-oriented leader, who always concern for the needs and want of the employees for keeping them motivated. On the other hand, Dinh et al. (2014) opined that effective leaders are highly collaborative for making harmonious workplace in the organization. As per this model, I am highly collaborative, which will help me to manage conflicting situation in mutually agreed condition rather than competing for resources.

After assessing my personalities through various self-assessment tools, I have found several strength and weaknesses about me. Such strength and weakness will have great influence on my leadership qualities.

The following points are the strengths of my personality:

• Achievement oriented
• Open and Creative
• Hardworking
• Organized
• Friendly

On the other hand, the following points are the weakness of my personality:

• Overly emotional
• Anxious
• Unassertive
• Thin psychological boundaries

SMART action plan defines the specific set of activities and actions to be adopted for fulfilling the specific goals. I will also apply SMART action plan for mitigating my weakness and make improvement upon myself for being a successful leader.

Table 1: SMART ACTION PLAN

(Source: Created by Author)

Among my weakness, anxiousness is one of the weakest parts of my personality. Hence, I should concentrate on meditation on regular basis. Such mediation on regular basis will reduce my anxiety level on complex situation. Apart from that, I should also reward myself sometimes for keeping my happy and motivating. Such reward will make me assertive and optimistic in my life. Hence, I will be better able to make thing possible even in complex situation, which will lead me towards being a successful leader. Creating easy time will be flexible enough to deal with people. Apart from that, I should be more cooperative with people, which will add to my leadership potentiality.

The success and result of meditation can be measured through being calm and cool in handling complex situation. I will be able to measure the success level of my daily meditation through the way in which I will be dealing complex situation. On the other hand, I will be able to measure the result of rewarding myself through being diplomatic in certain situation. Furthermore, the measures of having easy time can be reflected on me through my assertiveness. Moreover, I will be able to measure the success level of my easy time, when will be able to be assertive and optimistic in my life that will enhance my leadership quality. Apart from that, the result of my cooperation will be reflected on my ability to be cooperative with the people.

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

Maintaining and doing meditation on regular basis can be tough for busy person. However, I will be to attain and doing mediation on regular basis through finding some time for myself. It is extremely necessary for reducing my anxiety level. On the other hand, I will be able to reward myself through having some controlled therapy or spending some quality time with the close friends. Apart from that, I can achieve my cooperative personality though enhancing my interaction with the people. I can also have some easy time to be assertive and relaxed through being unproductive for some time.

Doing meditation on regular basis is realistic enough for me through finding some times for my regular exercise. Rewarding me is realistic enough for myself through having some quality and good moments for myself. Apart from that, being cooperative is realistic enough for me through being highly interactive with other. It will also enable me to have flexible approach in handling complex situation. On the other hand, creating easy time is realistic enough for me through finding some relaxing time for me o daily basis.

I want to improve my weakness within the next 6 months’ time period. Within this specific time, I will be segregating my weakness into different stages and will work gradually. For each of the stage progressive measures will be taken.

Conclusion

While concluding the study, it can be said that I have mostly strong personality that will help me towards becoming an effective leader in my future. I am highly extrovert and open in my life, which will help me to be highly interactive with the people. It will also help me to be creative in bringing organizational innovation. Apart from that, I am highly achievement oriented, which will add to my leadership quality for achieving realistic goals of organization in future. However, I am little bit anxious and overly emotional in my life, which can hamper my leadership quality. I will improve myself through implementing SMART goals.

Reference List

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Lussier, Robert N et al., 2013. Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development., New York: Cengage Learning.

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Park, H., Blenkinsopp, J. and Park, M., 2014. The influence of an observer’s value orientation and personality type on attitudes toward whistleblowing. Journal of business ethics, 120(1), pp.121-129.

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