Introduction
Personality is a fascinating topic for most of us. We tend to believe that the personalities of different people can be classified into various types and that learning about the type of personality someone has will help us to figure out how to better deal with that person. Are these common beliefs true? Is there much evidence for them? We will discuss these questions in this topic.
As we saw in Topic 1, OB is concerned with understanding the behaviour of people at work. The study of personal values contributes to this outcome in several important ways. Firstly, values underlie an individual’s attitudes (discussed in the previous topic). Therefore knowledge of someone’s value system can provide valuable insight into the reasons for their behaviour. A second important factor is that values are generally stable within adult members of the workforce and they therefore contribute to consistent behaviour across different contexts and situations. An individual’s sense of right and wrong will be the same, for example, whether they witness a criminal activity outside of work or whether they observe a fellow staff member take items from the company’s stationary cupboard.
Objectives
On completion of this topic, you should be able to:
- define personality
- describe the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality framework
- describe the Big Five personality model and explain how it may help to predict behaviour at work
- explain the interrelationship between personality, behaviour and values
- define values and give examples that fall under the two main classification types
- identify and discuss the dominant values among today’s workforce.
Approximate study time required
| Actively engaging with the lecture content | 2 hrs |
| Topic readings | 2 hrs |
| Undertake the prescribed learning activities | 1 hrs |
| Self-directed topic review | 1 hrs |
| Total | 6 hrs |
What is personality?
We commonly believe that each of us has a personality, defined by Robbins et al. (2020, p. 80) as ‘the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others’. We further believe that our personality is unique to us, somewhat like the fingerprints we each have. At the same time, it may be possible and useful to classify people in broad terms according to the personality types they have (just as fingerprints can be classified into various types).
The growing interest in employee engagement and the psychological contract among leaders, managers and employees is testament to the importance of understanding personality and its influence on organisational results. To help develop this awareness, we can draw valuable insight from different theories of personality. Having defined personality (and having assumed that such a thing exists), the text proceeds to describe two widely known theories of personality types, and the methods used to determine the personality type of a given person. These theories are the ‘Myers-Briggs Type Indicator’ and the ‘Big Five Model’.
Textbook
Turn to your text and read pages 79–92, stopping at the heading ‘Values’.
Activity 3.1 – Self-assessment exercise
How much does work define your self-concept?
Work is an important part of our lives but some people view it as secondary to other life interests whereas others view work as central to their identify as individuals. The following scale estimates the extent to which you view work as a central or not-so-central life interest. Read each of the statements below and decide how accurate each one is in describing your focus in life. Use the scoring key (available in the unit Blackboard site) to calculate your results. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers to these questions. Also note that this self-assessment should be completed alone so that you can rate yourself honestly, without concerns of social comparison.
| Work Centrality Scale | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each statement below | Strongly disagree | Moderately disagree | Slightly disagree | Slightly agree | Moderately agree | Strongly agree |
| The most important things that happen in life involve work. | ||||||
| Work is something people should get involved in most of the time. | ||||||
| Work should be only a small part of one's life. | ||||||
| Work should be considered central to life. | ||||||
| In my view, an individual's personal life goals should be work-orientated. | ||||||
| Life is worth living only when people get absorbed in work. | ||||||
Values
As the textbook highlights, identifying someone’s values greatly helps us to better understand their attitudes, motivation and personality. It is often very difficult, however, to view someone with an open mind. That is, our own values often dictate how we see and judge the behaviours of another person. While we study the concept of perception and personal bias in the following topic, it is important that we recognise and understand what values are, how they are formed and how they contribute to an individual’s personality.
Textbook
Turn to your text and read from page 92 until the chapter end.
Activity 3.2 – On the costs of being nice
Read the Case Study that is on p. 101 of your text and answer question 2.
Summary
The foundations of understanding individual behaviour can be found in theories of personality and the influence of personal or shared values. Recognising different personality types and the values that underpin them provides considerable opportunity to not only match individuals to particular tasks but also to change the nature of particular tasks to match the individual. Some individuals in the workplace, for example, may value new challenges while others value conformity and routine. The implications of this particular disposition will be examined in a later unit topic on Change Management.
While mainly treated as a personal characteristic in this topic, values also reflect and characterise differences among various organisational and societal groups. Hofstede’s research into cross-cultural values identifies five particular value dimensions that can help categories different nationalities. While generalising the research findings to all members of a particular country would not be appropriate, the dimensions provide valuable guidance for those who manage a multicultural workforce.