Personality & Performance

Life positive
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Personality and performance

By Showkat shafi 

Just recall your experiences with people you have met in life. How in a situation with your good communication skills, your good behavior , your smiling attitude you have been able to mould some ones behavior. Imagine a clerk or a teacher in your department who is reluctant to work at your expectations , how have you used your good personality traits to change their behavior or attitude.

I just want to few thoughts with you to help you take right decisions at right time in an organizational set up.

Personality has key influence on work performance. In jobs particularly with high human relations content , where most of the working day is spent interacting with other people , personality is a major determinant of what will be done and how it will be done. Each persons personality reveals itself in the way he or she works with his or her superior , subordinates, and other people . As a result when the incumbent on a job changes every one has to adjust to a whole series of changes in the way work is accomplished . The result is that the organization functions differently from the way the designers of the structure envisioned and what organization really is, reflects the personality of those who hold key jobs . This affects the individual performance and consequently the organizational performance .

The ability to effectively manage people requires a good understanding of both oneself and others. In Personality and Performance: Foundations forManagerial Psychology, Macquarie University academics Robert Spillane and John Martin argue that the purpose of psychology is to enable working people to gain insight into, and mastery of, themselves. This is at odds with the view that managers study psychology in order to better understand their colleagues’ personalities, and as a result, manage them more effectively.

Personality and Performance explores a number of areas, such as motivation, authoritarianism, social psychology and group dynamics. Personality and Performance is an academic text, and as such, makes for heavy going at times. It’s well known that the quality of managers can dramatically impact their teams’ retention, morale and productivity levels. However, managers’ abilities to do this can be hindered by the fact that they’re often promoted on their technical abilities, rather than their skills in managing employees. The good news is, this is changing

Noted scholar of educational psychology R S Dwivedi , in his famous book superiors , personality and performance summarizes the result of some thirty two studies on relationships between personality and performance conducted in India and abroad. I would like to share two of the major conclusions of these studies with readers. one , the research has found that personality or character traits were eight times more important than lack of skills in the reason for discharge of employees . second the successful executives had high frustration tolerance , understanding of competitions , ability to express hostility tactfully , ability to accept victory or defeat without too much emotions .

So friends . Where are we . Let us sum up. The high positive association with personality traits and performance suggests that managers can take suitable actions to make proper adjustments between personality and work so that performance is satisfactory. When personality problems arise a manager has three choices . One , he can endeavor to get people modify their behavior , second can make their job performance more consistent , or finally can change the job or even replace the person itself depending of course on the situation in which the decision is being taken.