Personality Styles and Organizational Effectiveness

Short Communication

Personality is among the human aspects that play a central role in an individual’s organizational behavior. The aspect influences a person’s manner of thinking, feelings, and behaviors, among other factors at the workplace. Moreover, a person’s attitude towards people and issues and their decisions and responses are highly dependent on their personality. Based on this argument, one can acknowledge the importance of undertaking a personality test at the places of work. This assessment is necessary for self-reflection and understanding and helping one learn how to better interact with other people. Understanding your personality is essential because this ties to job satisfaction and engagement. According to Redmond & Bower [1], job satisfaction refers to the positive attitudes or emotional dispositions people may gain from work or through aspects of work. Below is an analysis of my personality test.

After taking the test, the results were ENFJ type, whereby the Extravert aspect was 47% and Intuitive 6%. Feeling and Judging came out as 41% and 19%, respectively. This test reveals that I have a rare personality that makes one quite sociable and likable among peers. The test describes me as an individual that is charismatic, warm, engaging, persuasive, and quite talkative, among other traits of a sociable person (Humanmetrics Inc, n.d.). It describes that I possess excellent interpersonal skills, and therefore have a considerably high likelihood of ending up in occupations that call for productive collaboration. The Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test is very similar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. The MBTI is widely popular and used in business, career counseling, management styles, and team building. I remember a few years back taking this test in a teambuilding exercise. As stated by Luthans et al. [2], the test yields four personality dimensions or traits: (1) introversion/extraversion, (2) perceiving/Judging, (3) sensing/intuition, and (4) thinking/feeling.

Among the key strengthens of personalities of this type, according to the test, is that we are natural leaders. This factor means that this person is likely to find themselves in leadership and perform well in this role. Furthermore, this personality type is charismatic and tolerant; hence, they can appeal to their audience as well as take constructive criticism from others. However, this personality type can also be a weakness. For instance, I am likely to be too selfless and struggle to help others at the expense of their well-being. Noteworthy is that this personality type’s need to make everyone happy may affect my ability to make tough decisions when needed [3]. These weaknesses may affect our ability to lead objectively.

The lessons learned from background materials in this model regarding the ENFJ positively impact my motivation to explore leadership and entrepreneurship. These goals require the ability to appeal to others and work collaboratively, which this personality type presents. These lessons are not limited to a specific situation but can be applied to various aspects of life. Furthermore, multiple elements of this personality type align with positive affect, a predisposition that supports job satisfaction [4]. As such, the test reveals that ENFJ individuals are likely to enjoy their jobs. I was delighted to find out one of the career choices for ENFJ was that of a physician. I was glad to see that this personality type is engaging and tries to please others because, as I stated earlier, this personality type is engaging. Perhaps this is why I am delighted with my career choice. According to Luthans et al. [2], job satisfaction results from employees’ insight into how well their job provides those things that are observed as necessary. It is typically recognized in the organizational behavior field that job satisfaction is the most important and frequently studied employee attitude.

Some slight changes are necessary to improve the strengths and improve the weaknesses associated with this personality type. For instance, it is essential to focus on being more objective when making decisions than always to see the best in everyone. Why empathy is an admirable quality, objectivity is more necessary as an organizational skill. It is also essential to avoid being always overcommitted. For instance, being too much excited about a project makes it hard for one to make objective decisions when the said project has to be stopped. This improvement will be essential when deciding between quitting and continuing with such a project. These improvements reduce the weaknesses highlighted in this personality type.

References

1. Redmond BF, Bower CP. Job satisfaction. In Work Attitudes and Job Motivation. 2015.
2. Luthans F, Luthans KW. Luthans, BC. Chapter 5: Personality, perception, and employee attitudes. In Organizational behavior: An evidence-based approach, 13^th Edition. 2015; 102-129.
3. Bellows S. Learn personality strengths, weaknesses to thrive. Humanmetrics Inc. (n.d.). ENFJ Career Choices. 2016.
4. Psu.edu. (n.d.). Job Satisfaction Overview. 2016.