Personality is a basic individual trait. It explains why organizations have to look at the personality profiles of people whenever they have applied for jobs. Personality is the existing sequence of thoughts, emotions and behaviors that are in the traits of a person. It goes along with the psychological procedure behind the traits (Mcshane, Olekalns & Travaglione, 2013).These characteristics makes us similar to or different from other people. An individual’s personality can be estimated by his or her actions, what he or she talks and also the thoughts and behaviors of the person. People possess a wide range of behaviors in different situations. For example there are people who are talkative and others very quiet. These are some of the personal traits that can explain the personality of an individual. Over the past years, personality has been very important in organizational research, leadership and during selection of employees (Bullock, 2014).This essay is going to discuss some areas in relation to personality. It will also provide the personality tests and discuss a case study after discussing a student in class personality test results.

According to Lombardo (2014), the types A and B personality traits are two different approaches that explain how certain employee characteristic can affect the behavior in a work place. It has been found out that people with type A personality traits have the following characteristics; The person is usually aggressive, ambitious, controlling, highly competitive, preoccupied, with status, love working, hostile and impatient. People with Type B personality traits are usually relaxed, less stressed, flexible, emotional and expressive, and have a laid-back attitude (Lombardo, 2014). People with these two personalities can cause a lot of difficulties when put to work together.

The Big Five model is a very important model of personal traits that measures the personality of people. The traits are usually valuable tools to employ the right personnel. The model has become the best in analyzing what a person can do and how they react to situations in working places. The Big Five personality traits consist of the following: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (Bullock, 2014).Discussing each of the five dimensions, it can be understood better how they define personality. Openness to experience is about appreciating arts and ideas from other people. Conscientiousness is the need for self-discipline, achievement and planned behavior. Extraversion is the effort one applies trying to seek out social stimulation, energy and positive emotions. Agreeableness is the compassion that one possesses and the ability to be cooperative. Finally, neuroticism is the ability to easily become angry, anxious, and have other negative emotions. Neuroticism can also be explained by emotional stability which is the ability of not easily getting angry, anxious and, any other negative emotion (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen & Barrack, 1999).

The MBTI which means Myers Briggs Type Indicator explains whether a person is Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I), Sensing(S) or Intuition (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).Jung proposed that personality is represented by what the individuals prefer regarding, perceiving and judging information. Perceiving involves the way people prefer gathering information and viewing the environment around them. It occurs through two competing basis: sensing(S) and intuition (N).Sensing is perceiving information through the use of the five senses. Intuition depends more on insight and subjecting experience to see relationship among variables (Mcshane, Olekalns & Travaglione, 2013).Perception may be caused by the need to conform. This means that the people around an individual can affect the individual’s perception. We find that sensing focuses on the present, what happens today and now while intuition is long term since it focuses on the future.

Perception depends on various things: It may depend on how an individual sees himself, how others see other individuals and also it may depend on class. Perception can also depend on external influences upon the observer. For example when one holds a cold or hot can, a powerful effect is exerted on the individual’s perception (Wilson, 2010).How people perceive situations, is probably the most relevant for them in understanding organizational behavior.

I have gone ahead in testing my personality in class and analyzed my score. The test result of my personality is type B with a score of 94, and I agree with the results since they showed I am a type B+. The type B defines my personality better since am a person with little or no stress, very emotional and expressive whenever am wronged, relaxed when it comes to handling situations. My flexibility towards any work also brings into focus my real personality. I can handle any work comfortable as long as it’s worth. I agree with a type B like me with the same score, a lower score or even a higher one than mine as long as it is within type B. For example, doing class work in groups with such a person my personality compared to that of the person would go hand in hand. There would be minimal or no disagreement between us since we are conscious of each other’s personality.

I have also gone ahead and had a Big Five personality test. My Big Five personality test results showed that I am very open to experience. I appreciate ideas of others and the art. I have moderate high levels of self-discipline, and my orientations are in achievement to mean that my conscientiousness is high. I tend to be very cooperative and compassionate enough, which tested my level of my agreeableness. My emotions are always positive, with the energy and need for social stimulation since I associate with everybody and get along with anybody easily. In the last Big Five personality test, the result was that am very slow to anger, I never get so anxious and it is not easy for me to have any negative emotions. To confirm that the results were true for my personality, I took another personality test which indicated the same results as I had found in the Big Five personality test. The results defined my personality to some extent but I decided to consider my other results.

The next test I did is to check my Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).The result for my Myers-Briggs Test Indicator (MBTI) gave a suggestion that I am an ESFP personality. ESFP meaning extraversion, sensing, feeling and perceiving personality like discussed before. An ESFP person like me is very social with those that respect them, fun-loving, spontaneous and very generous to those who are honest. It means that, I can fit and do marvelous work in certain careers such as being a musician or a comedian. This can be true according to my personality of being social, slow to anger and honoring other people’s ideas among others.

In the case study, I would advice Alice to give Jana the chance and opportunity. It is evident that Jana like any other new employee has a probation period where she should learn the working environment and get used to the other employees. Most importantly, it is good for her to learn and understand the personality of her partner, Mark. Jana as a respectable and good employee should take into consideration Mark’s personality and know how to deal with him. In time it would work marvelously for Alice in the department since Jana could adapt well to Mark’s personality and get along with him really well. Sometime it becomes so surprising that a person with a totally different personality tends to like the personality of another person which is very different from that of his. These two people can really get along very well and also fit in the same working condition. It is advisable for Alice to take chances and give Jana the job instead of leaving the position vacant.

Personality test can be used in other various work contexts, besides employee selection. Personality test can also be used in predicting job performance among employees in different sectors of the organization. If the organization is a marketing and sales company, personality test can be used to perform the future of the sales department. According to Bullock (2014), conscientiousness is the best predictor of future performance in the sales field. It is then followed by extraversion since it requires so much socializing and the sales person usually required being talkative. In the customer service sector, personality test is also very important. Prediction of future performance in the customer service, require a number of traits in the Big Five test. It requires conscientiousness, which is the best predictor. In determining the performance of the customer service, agreeableness and openness to experience are other predictors of related to job performance in the sector (Bullock 2014).

Leadership is another field in an organization that calls for personality test. Leadership can be argued in two dimensions. First, it is about how employees emerge as leaders since all people have to start from somewhere before attaining other positions. Secondly, how these people perform once they are in the leadership positions such as the managerial roles. Conscientiousness and extraversion are strongly linked to leadership emergence, and significantly but less strongly associated with the effectiveness of leadership and managerial performance. A good leader must be persuasive and social. These traits can make a person get identified as a leader but they become of minimal importance when one gets the leadership position. Different skill sets and personality traits are needed even as one moves from supervisor to mid-level to executive leader (Bullock, 2014).

In conclusion, it is evident that these personality tests are of much importance when it comes to work. It is important to know the personality of employees in an organization for the success of the organization. When selecting employees it is important to know the type of personality of those being interviewed. Type A personality suits better in some positions than type Personality and so does type B personality suit in other areas than type B personality. Different combinations of the Big Five personality traits also work better in different fields of work. The different combinations help the management to know what personalities to combine in different positions for maximum output. Understanding of one’s personality due to testing his or her personal traits becomes much important in offering advice to the individuals. One can know what career to pursue in school since his or her personality suits that particular field better. It is important to have good leaders who know how to enhance good relationship between them and their employees. Good leaders mostly managers in an organization are determined by testing their personality. Testing their combination of Jungian 16 type personality, and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is also considered of importance.

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