Work Personalities as a Leadership Concept

Every person possesses unique characteristics in temperament, interaction and cognition styles. The personalities could either be beneficial to the people and their interactions or harmful in which case they become personality disorders. These dynamics are also at play in the work environment and continue to affect the performance of different individuals. It is the duty of leaders to identify the different personalities evident among employees and help the holders of such personalities to be most productive. The managers should act as leaders who maximize on the different personalities held by employees to achieve different organizational goals. Every organization should manage the personalities of different workers to maximize the benefits from those employees. Essentially, a work personality is a leadership concept that is necessary for improved performance of different units of production.

The work personality leadership concept dictates that leaders should be at the forefront in detecting different personalities and harmonizing the same for better performance. Eventually, both positive and negative personalities should be used to improve the output of the company as well as improving the individuals themselves. People with negative personalities, otherwise referred to as personality disorders are prone to lack insight on their personal behavior (Miller, 2003). As thus they cannot detect their nature of behavior and are unpredictable in their actions. In addition, they do not understand the negative impact that their personalities have on the organization as well as other employees. Most of the people with personality disorders find fault in circumstance beyond their control thereby complicating the matter further.

People with personality disorders are not useless but may be possessing impeccable talent in other areas of their work. Therefore, the leaders could tolerate their dysfunctions and work on utilizing the strengths that they possess in their workplace. It is perhaps for this reason that people choose their different career paths based on their personalities. In this concept, it is not only the talents that an individual possesses ore their level of intellect that determines the success of an individual but their personalities as well. Overall, people that possess personality disorders usually get comfortable with their traits and may not even realize they have problems until changes occur in the organization (Renn et al., 2005). The proper exploitation of the potentials of such people may however lead to optimal performance of the organization.

One of the many work personalities exhibited by workers is the avoidant personality which is a disorder in itself. It is characterized by inadequate feelings, and hypersensitivity to criticism. Moreover, people with this type of personality tend to have social inhibition and any attempt to interact with them is faced with confrontation. These people are not antisocial but they fear interactions with other people but may also very polite to their fellow employees. In essence, these people are usually very lonely and prefer to spend most of their time alone. The implication is that they do not share their problems with anyone and prefer to die with their own issues rather than air them out. In addition, they may occasionally be left out of social events by their peers not out of rejection but as a general form of being forgotten.

The implication of avoidant personalities is that they are at a disadvantage in jobs that need team skills. Moreover, avoidants may feel unwanted therefore avoiding places of work with excuses of sickness and family engagements. It is no doubt that most of avoidants end up not attending to their jobs and they are the first to take annual leave. In addition, these people may end up engaging in drug abuse in an attempt to fit in the society therefore impacting negatively on their performance. Eventually, the people may become too addicted and end up losing their jobs. The potential for avoidants to fall into these traps should be a concern for the leadership of the company as it presents an imminent danger of poor performance.

The remedy for avoidant personality disorders would be to be very accommodative with these employees. Leaders should assign tasks that have little and positive supervision thus removing the spotlight from the employees. It is only in these conditions that the full potential of these employees can be exploited. Leaving the employee with minimal supervision increases the faithfulness and dedication of the employees to the job they have been assigned thereby improving the performance by high margins. Nevertheless, the leaders should not let the workers become solitary units who cannot function in a team (Gerhardt et al., 2009). Rather, they should be given space to exercise personal tasks while still enhancing their ability to work within cohorts of employees.

There is also another personality disorder visible in dependent personalities of people. These are the opposite of avoidant and they require an increased attention from mother people. In addition they have an excessive need to be taken care of which imparts on them a clinging behavior on other people. Dependents prefer to have people around them and are desperately in search of people to interact wioth while in their places of work. As thus, dependents are far much better working in groups compared to the other personality types.  However, their participation in groups is not solely participatory but may also be an attempt to socialize and not engage in the assigned tasks per se. As such, dependents only fear interacting with people if they foresee a potential of rejection and diminishing support.  They look out to other people for support and guidance from their fellow employees and are constantly asking for help from the other workers.

Dependents are unique in that they possess great levels of dedication to their job s while at their work places. They are a great asset to any organization as they help in the execution of group assignments and those that require the input of many members. Although they are natural followers, they are important in mobilizing people to perform specific tasks and are also a source of motivation for other employees as their presence in any team brings happiness to the other employees.  In addition, they take interruptions during the performance of their duties personally and are more prone to anger.  The behavior means that their feelings are much more likely to be hurt leading to a loss of motivation and morale. However, despite their feelings being hurt they are less likely to hold grudges against fellow employees from acts of either omission or commission.

The sensitivity they possess is a disadvantage in that it imparts great stress and strain the anxiety ensued may result in the focus on other people therefore leading to disappointment.  For instance, a threat of job termination may seem like the end of the employee’s world and eventually lead to stress on their part. Leaders should emphasize on making the employees better by concentrating on their strengths while overlooking the shortfall in their personalities. The leaders should thus assign subordinate jobs to the employees such that they work under the supervision of others. It is through this work arrangement that the employees can exploit their full potential in an organization. However, these people will always present problems when they are left to take initiatives during the execution of their jobs. Leaders should not become tired of the employees’ frequent need for reassurance and their behavior to only do things that they have been asked to do.

The best remedy to nurture the potential of dependents in a work place is through counseling and coaching. The people’s eagerness to learn should be exploited during such sessions and leaders should not tire from attempts by the workers to feel reassured in their place of work. Essentially, the managers should strike the right balance in the management of different employee personalities. The goal of every leader should be to maximize the impact of positive personalities among employees while minimizing the impacts of the negative personalities. Moreover, leaders should identify the necessary types of supervision for different types of personalities to ensure efficient performance of the employees. Criticism of the employees’ personality may not be the best method of attaining optimal performance of the employees. Rather, leaders should focus on customized attention of each individual to identify their personalities and find the right way of managing the same.

 

References

Miller, L. (2003). Personalities at work: Understanding and managing human nature on the job. Public Personnel Management, 32(3), 419-434.

Renn, R. W., Allen, D. G., Fedor, D. B., & Davis, W. D. (2005). The roles of personality and self-defeating behaviors in self-management failure. Journal of Management, 31(5), 659-679.

Gerhardt, M., Ashenbaum, B., & Newman, W. R. (2009). Understanding the Impact of Proactive Personality on Job Performance The Roles of Tenure and Self-Management. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 16(1), 61-72.

 

 
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