Personality

Why is it important for your personality to be compatible with the work environment and responsibilities?

Traditionally, personality is defined as ones consistent manner of behaving and responding to the world or events that is somewhat stable in a variety of situations. Personality is both how you behave as well as the feelings and thoughts that influence how you behave.

As a result of cross-cultural studies, five main personality dimensions were identified as commonly used to describe people (McCabe and others, 1998; 1999). While the language may be different, the personality characteristics include: emotional stability, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness. One example of how personality affects ones work, is a person who needs order and predictability in their life in order to feel comfortable and competent in their life. This person would be on the opposite extreme of openness, preferring routine rather than variety. They are likely to be very unhappy in a job working with young children where you will experience a lot of unexpected events and unpredictable changes in children's' needs. Or the example of an introverted, i.e., shy person working as a salesperson. In both these cases the individuals would be very uncomfortable and unhappy with their work environment and responsibilities.

It is universally held, as a result of research, that ones personality is the result of inherited temperaments and learned experiences as well as characteristics of a particular environment at the moment. In other words, it is said that heredity defines a range of behavior on a continuum for you that results in somewhat stable and predictable tendencies, experience determines where in the continuum you will fall and a particular situation at a given time affects the likelihood that you will display that personality trait. For example, you may be born sociable, but you may be raised by your introverted mother. This would cause you to be less extroverted than if you had been raised by your extroverted father. Finding yourself in a autocratic work environment where you get the sense that no one is interested in your opinions, you may behave less extroverted at work than with your friends.

While most occupations have specializations and roles that will fit different types of personalities, John Holland (1985) held that occupational achievement, stability, and satisfaction depend on congruence between personality and the work environment. He outlined 6 career personalities types corresponding to 6 work environments. His six types include: artistic, conventional, realistic, social, enterprising and investigative.

Carl Jung focused differences in personality that he asserted are the result of different preferences for experiencing, acting in and dealing with the world as well as making decisions. The dimensions he outlined came to be a well utilized instrument in businesses to help organizations and individuals be more functional, sensing-intuiting, introversion-extroversion, perceiving-judging and feeling-thinking (respectively).

Exploring Your Personality Type:

Other Personality Inventories:

Keirsey Temperament and Character Website
AdvisorTeam's Temperament Sorter is an online personality assessment tool, that offers a free trial. It is also translated into foreign languages. Created to help people gain new understanding of their traits, motivations, and behaviors, the Temperament Sorter analyzes one particular aspect of personality; temperament.

Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential (MAPP)

A free sample of MAPP Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential your natural motivations for work and access to 5 O*NET job descriptions.