How Does your Personality Shape your Workplace Effectiveness - Essay Writing Assessment Answers

Understanding the task

How does your personality shape your workplace effectiveness?

• The focus of this assignment is you!
• This means that some parts of your essay can be written in the 1st person (using the pronouns I, me, my, mine).
• This essay also has a research component in which you will report on relevant literature. This means using 3rd person, neutral expressions such as “According to Jones (2014)”…

The essay sections

• You must include the following sections outlined in your unit plan on p.14:

- introduction #1

- body/discussion #2-4

- conclusion #5

- references #6

- appendices #7

Essays and critical essays

• Essays written for a business context should have headings and sub-headings.
• Although this essay has many sections, it must form a cohesive whole.
• The essay is an argument. It must persuade the reader that there is evidence behind your assessment of yourself and your plan for the future.
• This includes:

- providing evidence for your views and

- indicating where the evidence is uncertain or raises further questions .

• Building an argument requires you to use critical thinking skills.
• The foundations of a good essay are good body paragraphs and a logical sequencing of ideas.

#1 The introduction

• Introduce the subject of this essay: Use key terms such as effective management, personality, skills and competencies.
• Indicate that the essay is personal and reflective in its approach. Use 1st person voice ( I, me, my, mine)
• Outline the structure of the essay, giving an indication of the sections that will follow the introduction.
• Word length approx. 300 words.

#2 Review of literature

• In this section show your understanding of how personality shapes a manager’s effectiveness in the workplace. Write approx. 1000 words.
• Cite a minimum of 10 non-textbook references.
• This part of the assignment can be in 3rd person as it is not personal to you but you may choose to use 1st person at the start of this section to explain why you selected these particular areas of the literature for review.
• Narrow your focus to concentrate on how personality impacts on 2 or 3 specific skills or competencies e.g. decision-making and managing conflict.
• Choose skills and competencies that match those identified in the evaluation section. Build cohesion.
• You could also choose to narrow ‘personality’ to one or two dimensions e.g. extroversion and/or intuiting.
• Narrowing your focus will allow you to be more analytical and less descriptive.

#3 Evaluation

This section of your essay is an evaluation of how your personality impacts on your skills and competencies for managing yourself and others. It includes:

1. An analysis of your skills and competencies in management from the questionnaires and quizzes provided in this unit.
2. An analysis of your MBTI results.

• Word count for #3 is about 500 words.
• Test result details should be in appendices.

Thinking critically

• Consider your results on the quizzes or questionnaires that you have completed.
• Think critically about the results. What do the results suggest? For example:

If some of the quizzes cover common ground, are the results consistent? If not, what does this mean? Are the quizzes reliable?

Can you identify some of your strengths and weaknesses? Do you think they might relate to dimensions of your personality?

#4 The plan

• The plan is about your management development.
• You should be specific (use the smart goals framework). You need to say

- which skills/competencies you want to develop.

- how and when you will learn them.

- how you will know that you have learned them.

• Management literature may provide you with useful strategies for developing your skills and competencies. When you are searching for materials for your literature review, you should also be looking for these strategies.
• Word length approx. 700 words

#5 Conclusion

Your conclusion should bring your essay to a close by summarising the key points:

• Why was this reflective task undertaken?
• Where did you get your information/evidence?
• How consistent is the evidence?
• What did you learn? Did it surprise you or confirm what you already knew?
• What you intend to do with this knowledge and why?
• Word length 250 words

#6 The references

• You must have a reference list which is formatted according to APA 6th guidelines.
• Reference your quizzes (by URL if not published).
• The references must be in alphabetical order and have hanging indents.
• There are referencing materials available online via the library site and FBL Academic Skills Centre.

#7 Appendices

• Label your appendices A, B, C…
• Include the details of questionnaires and quizzes in your appendices.
• You must refer to your appendices in the text of your work. E.g. For detailed test results see Appendix A.
• Appendices are not included in your word count.

Presenting your work

• our work should look professional.
• Check the task instructions and ensure that you have completed all parts of the task.
• Use spell check and grammar check.
• When you edit your work, imagine that you are the marker and are reading it for the first time.

Introduction

This essay deals with the major skills that I possess. It will be a reflection of all the personality tests that I have undertaken. These tests, questionnaires and puzzles include MBTI, Beblin team roles, Thomas-Kilmann, 41 questions for one personality, etc. With the help of these puzzles and questionnaires I got to know my personality, skills and competencies. It has also helped me in knowing the effective management and what shall I do for that. To come up with a proper plan as per my personality outcomes I will first undertake the literature review which will focus on the aspects of personality and its impact on workplace effectiveness, impacts of skills and competencies on decision making, conflict situation and team work. I will then link my skills that I have identified using questionnaire and quiz and match it with the desired skills. For this I will go through all the relevant material that will help me materializing the facts and findings about my personality. I will also discuss in detail the dimensions of my personality on the basis of evaluation. My focus will be on critically examining the findings of the quizzes to ascertain that they are relevant or not. After this critical evaluation and my perception about the findings I will prepare the plan. The objective of this plan is to know the skills and competencies that I want to develop and how I will develop them. This will also tell in detail that how I will develop these skills and finally after that how I will know that I have developed those skills. This entire section will be based on SMART objectives so as to get specific results. In this way I will be able to determine my personality traits and managerial effectiveness.

Review of literature

I believe that personality plays a vital role in the effectiveness of a manager at workplace. All the managers working in an organization have different personalities and because of that their efficiency and working style is also different. In my opinion the most significant factors to be covered in this literature review are MBTI, Thomas Kilmann framework for conflict and Big five personality (Batenburg, Walbeek, & Maur, 2013). This is because of the reason that the focus of this essay will be conflict situation, decision making and employee relations. My reason behind choosing these topics is that these are the most significant part of an organization and they have potential to affect the effectiveness of a manager to a very great extent. The big five personality model also suggests that every individual has different personality traits and these are the traits that guide an individual while working in an organization. The personality is made up of different elements such as attributes, beliefs, motives, behaviors and values and these elements are different in all the individuals and due to that the personality of all the individuals is different (Wood, 2010). The workplace effectiveness is affected by the personality because of the factors such as introversion, extraversion, judgments, decision making ability, etc. For an instance some managers may be very good in taking decisions while some may not be good and due to that they may lose a projector they may not be able to show efficiency in their tasks. The Thomas Kilmann framework suggest that if an individual have assertive personality then it will be very difficult for him to resolve the conflicts in the organization. On the other hand if a manager has a co-operative personality then he/she may be able to resolve the conflict easily without affecting the productivity of the organization (Celik, 2013). Similarly different personality types have different aspects in the effectiveness of workplace.

The personality of an individual has an impact on skills and competencies of a manager at workplace. Let us take example of skills like team working, managing conflict situation and decision making. There are many qualities required in an individual to make him/her a team player. Every individual can’t play a positive role in the team. The personality traits that are required in an individual are co-operative nature, hardworking, eager to take challenges, mutual understanding, respecting others, inter-personal skills, etc. (Collins & Cooke, 2013). For an instance Beblin team roles talks about different types of personalities and their roles in a team. This phenomenon also suggests that every type of personality has strength and a weakness. It argues that there are majorly nine types of personalities and all these personalities play different roles in the effectiveness of a team. Some personalities become very good team players while other becomes very good team leaders and some of them even prevent the team work and effectiveness. In this way all the personalities in Beblin team role that are Plant, specialist, evaluator, implementer, finisher, etc have distinguished effects on the team effectiveness (Liang, Shih, & Chiang, 2015). Secondly in case of conflict situations some individuals do not let affect the creativity and effectiveness of the organization while other hampers the productivity of the organization. This is because of the reason that every individual has different capability of conflict resolution. Thomas-Kilmann talks about five ways in which an individual resolves a conflict. The usage of these five styles is based on the personality which they have divides into two parts that is assertiveness and co-cooperativeness. If an individual has highly assertive personality then he will not resolve the conflict whereas the individual with co-operative personality will resolve the conflict. There are five ways of conflict resolution that are collaborating, compromising, avoiding, accommodating and competing. Thirdly, MBTI (Myres-Briggs Type Indicator) proposed four legends o understand a personality. These legends are extraversion vs introversion, sensing vs intuition, thinking vs feeling and judging vs perception. It suggests how an individual directs or focuses on something and how he takes information. It also talks about how the take decisions and how they act to the outer world (Mullins, 2007).

The skills that have been found in evaluation section are based on Beblin test, MBTI and Thomas kilmann. The Beblin team role test suggests that my personality is of Implementer. The Beblin test suggests that my personality is of Implementer. This simply means that in a team my role will always be of implementer. The result of Thomas-Kilmann suggests that I am of co-operative nature when it comes to conflict situation and I prefer to choose two ways to resolve conflict that are accommodating and compromising. The result of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) suggests that I am Introvert, sensing, thinking and judging type of personality. It also suggests that I have a logical flow in decision making and I plan logically about what should be done and how to work towards it steadily (Meslec & Curseu, 2015). In this way the skills that match are Implementer in a team, resolution of conflict in an efficient manner because of co-operative personality and better decision making because of thinking personality. In this manner to become an effective manager at workplace it is very important to have skills that are described above. It is not prescribed in the texts that which type of personality is the most effective personality. For an instance if a comparison is drawn between introversion and extraversion then both the forms are apt at their places. Sometimes a manger has to be introvert and sometimes there is a need to become extrovert. An introvert manager will help in keeping the secrets of the organisation and he will put all the energy in work rather than in interacting with others (Martin & John, ,2010). On the other hand an extrovert manager will help in building better relationship with customers and cracking many important deals. Both can be effective sometimes as well as ineffective and same is the case with other aspects of Myres-Briggs Type indicators. This is why many researchers are of the opinion that an efficient personality is the one that adjusts according to the situation.

Evaluation

The Beblin test suggests that my personality is of Implementer. When it comes to work in a team I am more inclined towards implementation. I have got highest score in this particular test which is 15 (See appendix H). Thus, my team role in team is of implementer. The result of Thomas-Kilmann suggests that I am of co-operative nature when it comes to conflict situation and I prefer to choose two ways to resolve conflict that are accommodating and compromising (See Appendix I). The 41question one personality test suggests that my personality is “good-natured realist”. The result of 41 question test and MBTI are somewhat similar (See Appendix A). It also suggests that I value loyalty and traditions. It also suggested about the career that fits my personality that are nurse, social workers, shopkeeper, etc. The disk personality test suggests that the most dominant factor in my personality is compliance which is 46% (See Appendix B). The mindful awareness attention scale suggests that I am at moderate level of mindfulness and the score is 76 (See Appendix D). The PH and AM learning style questionnaire suggest that the most common combination in my personality is reflector/theorist (See Appendix F). In this way the results of almost all the tests suit my personality. I think these scales are reliable to some extent but then there are some exceptions. An individual shall not rely totally on these scales. In my case the results are uniform and I conform to all the results except for the result of mindful awareness attention scale and PH and AM learning style questionnaire. I perceive myself as person who is mindful and observes even a minute detail and this is why I comply with the things and this is why the disk personality test suggests 46% compliance. My strength is my practical aspect, co-ordination and my nature, whereas my weaknesses are complying with everyone and my dependence on others for the accomplishment of tasks. Thus, all the tests and quizzes give similar result and I agree with the results. The only thing is that all these tests, quizzes and questionnaires are based on several assumptions and this is why they can’t be perfect for every individual but they can provide a guidance so as to find the actual personality traits.

The result of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) suggests that I am Introvert, sensing, thinking and judging type of personality. I got 6 score for introvert, 5 score for sensing, 5 for thinking and 6 for judging (See Appendix E). It means that I am quiet and serious type of personality and with that I earn success by dependability. To get succeeded I am dependent on others. The analysis also suggests that I am practical and my expectations are realistic. It also suggests that I have a logical flow in decision making and I plan logically about what should be done and how to work towards it steadily. I am the type of personality who takes pleasure in managing everything in an organised manner be it home, work or their lives.

The plan

As per the result of Beblin team roles I am an implementer but I want to be resource investigator. This team role attracts me a lot because it is outgoing, communicative, enthusiastic and develop contacts. On the other hand the result of MBTI suggests that I am introvert that is indeed true and I want to become a manager who is extrovert. Thus, my plan is actually to be become an outgoing, extrovert and communicative manager. This planning is described in detail in below points as per the SMART objectives.

The skills and competencies that I want to develop are described as below:

As mentioned above I want to develop my team role skills. I just don’t want to be an implementer rather I would like to become a resource investigator and for that I will have to develop communication skills first. For this I will also have to develop skills to positively handle a situation that is optimism. Thus, my focus is towards developing two major skills that are interpersonal communication skills and optimism. I believe that these skills will help me in becoming a good manager. With the help of these skills and competencies I will become outgoing and extrovert.

I will learn them in following ways (how and when):

To learn these skills I will first take suggestions from my peers, seniors and teachers about how I can develop these skills. After getting their feedback I will learn about verbal and non-verbal communication first and then focus on my body language so as to build the confidence. I will also learn about different cultures because it is also important to communicate well with people who are from diverse culture. It will give me an opportunity to interact them. After that I will try to regulate my emotional cues. To develop myself as an optimistic I will study stories about successful individuals who have kept faith and got succeeded. This will help me to become an optimistic personality. I will learn this skill at my college while noticing my teachers and peers and take notes of their interpersonal skills. This will be the best time to learn these skills because after graduating I will have to use it in work-setting. I will also try to initiate conversation with people and this will help me in getting rid of hesitation. I will bring all these skills in my regular practice while talking to someone. Regular practice and usage will make me an expert after some time. In this way after mastering at interpersonal communication skills I will become extrovert from being an introvert.

To know whether I have learned them or not, I will use following ways:

After all these efforts it is very necessary to keep a check on these skills and know whether I have actually learnt them or not. I will do this by using evaluation and controlling method. Firstly I will take feedback from the people with whom I spend maximum time because they are the one who know that how I behave and they can notice any change in my personality. This is the first thing to do to ensure whether learning has taken place or not. Secondly, I will check it by my own by observing myself and my behaviour while talking to others. I will write down my experience and then analyse it gradually while observing my behaviour. In this way I will come to know whether I learnt these skills or not.

SMART Goal framework for skills development :

Conclusion

Thus the major aim with which this reflective task was undertaken is to determine the strengths and weaknesses in the personality. It was also intended to review the literature on personality and then use it as a standard to compare my personality against it. With the use of different questionnaires, quizzes and tests I came to know about various aspects of my personality and compared it with literature. I got a lot of information from the text and research papers about the evidences of the personality traits, how these frameworks work and how one can use them to develop various skills and competencies. After going through all the evidences I felt that there are variations in the evidences available. To my surprise I got to know something new about my conflict resolving skills. I never thought that I am co-operative and I can creatively resolve any conflict by compromising but yes I can do that. There were many things that I already knew but then a number of findings were new for me and I learnt about them for the first time. In this way this was a learning experience for me. I think that it is a great opportunity for an individual to develop as a manager with skills and competencies that are required to perform the tasks in an effective manner in the organisation. With the knowledge that I gained during this activity I will continuously try to develop my skills and competencies and it will help me to focus on my weaknesses. In this way skill development to become an efficient manager is my objective behind this activity.