The Role of Individuals at the Workplace - Assignment Example

Name: Title: Institution: Personality Analysis Report Over the years several scholars have attempted to look at various perspectives that personality and emotion have on individuals in general life and even in their places of work. Some leant towards personality traits and how they affect the effectiveness of an individual while others look into the factors such as attitude and competency. Whichever the case, there is no doubt that workers have various factors that motivate or generally affect their productivity at the work place. Task 1: Literature review The role of individuals at the workplace is to bring about a number of differences in performing their tasks. Since these individuals primarily have different backgrounds they will have a variety of personalities, values, and attitudes before they join an organization and even during their stay at the organization. Scholars have looked into personality to consist of as a person’s possession and control of what may be referred to as constant feelings, thoughts, and changes in behavior that can be attributed to them. The long ranging agreement concerning personality has been that individual posses unique attributes that makes the individual; stand out from other people. Further, it has been observed that and understanding an individual’s personality is an integral part in the process of making observations on how the individual may respond under various circumstances and in given situations. This process is particularly important to managers at the work place given that they would be dealing with people brought out from different backgrounds and therefore it is important to know how to handle each one of them with minimal conflict. Modern literature looking into this subject further brings out the implication that understanding the knowledge of individuals’ personalities may assist in allocating the right tasks to the most suitable persons. This way the individual may cultivate the right attitude and may also bring out the best competencies necessary for handling the said task. From this perspective the argument brought about by some researchers who state that results posted by various individuals may be dependent on and determined by stable or transient characteristics that affect their behaviors and performance. It must be understood that organizations bring in people to work for them with the believe that they poses some knowledge skills, abilities, that they must use in contributing to the overall objectives of the organization. By and large all personalities will affect the workplace in general. The debate would probably be more edged towards how or to what extent the personality affects the work place. For instance people with a creative mind or personality would use the work place as a place to experiment thereby brining in new ideas while endeavoring to create solutions through artistic elements of their experiment. Similarly, individuals with a somewhat compassionate personality may choose to work in a environment where they are able to serve humanity while persons with Task 2: Analyzing Personal Effectiveness. It is not always easy to measure the extent to which an individual is effective especially when this analysis is expected to be conducted by and on oneself. In analyzing my own effectiveness in the workplace, I would use a number of parameters that may reflect own personal key competences. In using what is referred to as the Multidimensional Self Concept Scale, I would measure my own performance under categories that include social, affect, competence, academic, family, and physical well-being. Notably, all these attributes are important while looking at personal performance at the work place. From a social perspective, I may confidently refer to myself as a relatively sociable person who is able to interact with colleagues under various circumstances and as every situation may demand. Looking around my work place, I would say that at approximately every one is a friend. I may cite for instance that was my own wedding. In this occasion, I got overwhelming support from my colleagues, most of which was genuinely expressed as they ran errands on my behalf to ensure that everything took place and goes down as planned. This particular incident got me to look at things from a different perspective. Besides, the collective presents I got from colleagues, I received several presents from individuals with whom I work. To some extent this can be used as a measure of how well one is able to use their personality to influence their sociability within the work place. Mine can be termed as positive. One of the most important aspects of any job is competence. Regardless of an individual’s personality, employees consider competence as key component of the employee’s portfolio. In regard to competence am at a relatively high rating given my qualifications before joining the organization and several other trainings that I have undergone thereafter. As depicted earlier on in this essay, personality is comprised of all aspects that make up an individual’s development. In this regard, my personal competence in reference to my job has greatly contributed to the advancement of my personality. Part of the trainings I have undertaken have enabled me to further develop in terms of handling my own emotions and even cultivating the right mindset towards other people’s attitude and even proper approach to other matters affecting my job. Researchers have developed what is referred to as Emotional Empathy scale which is basically used to look at vicarious experience of another’s emotional experiences or in simple terms attempting to feel what the other person feels. As far as personality measurement is concerned, this concept looks into the person’s experiences in regard to having emotional empathy for others. This means that the individual may be looked at vise a vise his or her reactions towards the emotional attitudes of other people. Manager’s attitudes and reactions in different situations fall into this category. On a personal scale, my reaction in this area may not quite be described in a single adjective since it tends to vary from situation to situation. Frankly speaking, there are situations that take place in a colleague’s life that I would say I feel nothing about, especially if they don’t directly affect their life. In one incident, my friend mourned greatly about the death of her per. It was such an emotional occurrence that it affected her general performance of a period over time. However, as far as I was concerned, this situation was just another case of a dead animal that ought not to have had any effect of her job performance at all. Not every individual would have such an approach to the same event. In fact my some of my friends could not understand why I almost laughed off her reaction. The point am trying to put across here relates more to attitude. As we previously observed, attitude is also a key component of an individual’s personality. As far as behavior in the workplace is concerned, a number of items come into the picture. Here, I may interrogate real actions that shape my day to day undertakings at the workplace. Am a time conscious individual and always expect that every person should observe time as much as I do. This aspect and not really hit me until I once called off a departmental meeting I was supposed to chair because a number of individuals were about five minutes late. It was an important one looking into the department’s budget but then I felt very offended by individuals who almost ignored my time observations skills. In spite of this I am a rather poor organizer and quite often have my desk untidy. In some situations, this affects my performance as I sometimes search for a misplaced item for long. Emotional responses too may largely determine the extent to which an individual succeeds at the work place. The ability to contain and even express emotions genuinely is a key issue in determining the relationship between individuals and their association. At a personal level, I have developed anger management skills over time. Being a police officer with the Abu Dhabi Police, this is an important element and an important one in the nature of work and people a police officer has to deal with on a daily basis. It has taken deliberate efforts to improve the way I handle provocative situations. Previously, I easily got irritated even with issues that did not necessarily call for such kind of a reaction. I easily picked quarrels with peers especially in situations where tasks were not performed to standards or expectations. In some situations, work that is not delivered handed in on time could easily bring about a stressful situation that I would think about or that would disturb me for quite some time.It took the m intervention of persons who noted a rather disturbing trend in me. Although this situation has improved greatly, I still encounter instances that easily make me angry quite easily. The flip side of it is that under such circumstances, there am able to cool my temper fast enough to quell the situation. Task 3: Strategies for developing your workplace effectiveness. In dealing with personality challenges it is important to develop some personal traits. Although personal traits may be developed some have a natural attribute and an individual needs to enhance them through various mechanisms of interacting with the environment within which he or she is operating (Vincent, 1980). In this context, the individual may be required to put in some effort in order to make these traits effective and useful in terms of his interactions with persons around him and even the general environment. One of the processes I would engage in to enhance my personality and emotional competencies is through self monitoring. Basically, self monitoring refers to a process through which an individual is able to adjust his or her behavior towards external factors and situational factors (Goleman, 1994). It is observed that individuals with high monitoring mechanism of personal characteristics generally demonstrate the ability to adapt easily to situations (Louis, 2000). In addition, they are considered to be relatively sensitive factors that would affect their overall performance. In my situation, this process would help me in dealing with situations that may make me angry (Ackerman, 1991). Since this process is based primarily on the ability to observe personal developments, I would utilize it to detect and avoid situations that would easily lead me to develop anger self-monitoring practices is said to poses characteristics such as paying close attention to other people’s behavior. Risk taking would be another tool that I may utilize to manage and develop my personality and personal effectiveness (Charles, David, 1994). Researchers have implied that the tendency to avoid risk may impact on the period of time an individual takes to make a decision as well as the amount of information they may need to make these decisions. As far as my work place situation is concerned, I have in several occasions failed to take actions that could otherwise have been beneficial. This tool would thus help me develop an attitude of taking risk where and when it is necessary. Works Cited Goleman, David (1994), Emotional Intelligence, New York: Bantman Books. Ackerman Heggestead(1991), Intelligence, personality and Interests, Evidence for overlapping traits: Physiological Bulletin. Vincent Clifford., (1980) Character Analysis, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Louis.,John(2000),The Psychologist's Book of Personality Tests: 24 Revealing Tests to Identifand Overcome Your Personal Barriers to a Better Life, John Wiley and Sons. Charles Krauskopf, David Robertson Saunders, (1994) Personality and ability: the personality assessment system, University Press of America. Read More