Question

According to Robbins and Judge 2010, personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.

a) Describe two (2) approaches to measuring personality.    

b)  Identify two (2) major difficulties in studying personality

c) Use two (2) examples to discuss how an understanding of personality may assist the manager in recognizing the problems of individuals in work roles and the conflict that might arise

   

Answer 1

a) Approaches to measuring personality

There are different approaches to measure one's personality such as interview, rating scale, self-report, behavioural observation etc.

Interview: It is like telling a story about oneself. This can act as the best way to measure someone's personality. The aim of the interview is to assemble information and this information is related to what you ask to form an individual. The quality and quantity both depend on the interviewer and the person answering. A direct question is being asked from the person which makes it very easy for the analyzer to come at a conclusion regarding his or her personality type.

Behavioral observation: Observation means a close watch. It helps to assess one person's personality as when you observe a person you get to know many things about him or her such as likes, dislikes, interests,vision, decision making many things.One can create a pool of information via behavioral observation. The outcome of behavioral assessment depends on the behaviors being selected for observation.

2)major difficulties in studying personalities:

a)Preconceived notions:

when you make a prior opinion about a person it become very difficult to study their personality. Since you already have an image of their personalities in your mind you are unable to assess him properly and in an unbiased way.

b)Outside influence:

Outsiders tend to influence your thinking. Race , religion, color, appearance, people opinion, history, economic status all these are the outside influence that makes you judge a personality rather study the personality.

3)Conflict arises due to indifference in behavior. When you know a person you know how to deal with them efficiently. Knowing helps a manager to balance constructive differences in opinion and avoid negative conflict that could be disruptive.

For example, if a manager knows that a certain person always flows opposite to the team he can manage him through his vision and leadership. This is possible because you know the personality of the person. A manager can then easily sort out the differences and make the team move towards the objective.

In other ways, there are few people who are problem solvers and critical thinkers. When you are aware of your team leading becomes easy.A manager knows these personalities will always work for achieving set objective hence they are being given such roles that they don't feel dissatisfied with their job profile.Division of work becomes easy which helps to avoid conflict.