Big Five Personality Types. Free Essay

People in teams have diversity in personalities. That is, there are differences between one person and another. According to researchers, there are big five personality dimensions and traits. The theories were formulated for the first time by D. W. Fiske in 1949. Other researchers and theorists expanded on the work later on. The five categories include openness, which features some traits, such as insight. Individuals who have high levels of this trait a more extensive interest range (Raad, 2000). They are more creative and adventurous and are eager to learn new things while enjoying new experiences.

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Conscientiousness is another trait dimension where individuals have high levels of thoughtfulness, goal-oriented behaviors, and reasonable impulse control. These people tend to be mindful of details and well-organized. They are conscious of deadlines, think about the consequence of their actions on others, and plan.

Extraversion

Extroversion or extraversion entails high emotional expressiveness amounts, assertiveness, talkativeness, sociability, and excitability. These individuals tend to be of high energy and outgoing in social situations. Being in the company of these individuals helps other people feel excited and feel energized. On the other hand, those of low extroversion have less social settings energy and are more reserved.

Agreeableness

The dimensions of this personality trait include affection, kindness, altruism, trust, and other prosocial behaviors (John, Robinson and Pervin, 2011). Those with high levels of this trait are more cooperative with those with low standards, which can sometimes be manipulative and are more competitive.

The last personality dimension trait is neuroticism, which is characterized by emotional instability, moodiness, and sadness. The high in this trait has a lot of mood swings, sadness, irritability, and anxiety. In contrast, those with low levels of this trait are more emotionally resilient and stable.

McClelland’s Psychological Needs

On the other hand, individuality and how people are driven in a team is explained by David McClelland. He postulated the human psychological theory that allows one to study and identifying the motivating drivers of people within groups. Learning the drivers may enable leaders to effectively give praise and feedback, keep the individuals motivated, and assign them tasks that are suitable to them (Lebed and Bar-Eli, 2013). according to this theory, it is possible to align individuals depending on their traits and personalities. Affiliation is one single most significant motivational drivers within teams; hence it can be utilized for individuals in a group to feel more appreciated and useful.

`McClelland (1961) identified the three motivators that he believed all humans have. These include the need for power, affiliation need, and need for having achievement. However, people have different motivators depending on the dominant motivator within them. McClelland asserts that these motivators need to be learned and are highly psychological (Fujishin, 2007). As such, all humans have these three motivating drivers, regardless of age, culture, or gender. One of these motivators becomes dominant, depending on an individual. Our life experiences and culture dictate the dominant motivator.

Values and Belief System

Beliefs can be defined as convictions and assumptions that people hold based on actual past experiences. Values, on the other hand, are the worthy ideas we own based on people, concepts, and things. How we express these internalized systems of values, beliefs, and attitude determines our behaviors (Inglehart, Basanez, and Moreno, 2010). It is worthy to note that attitudes are made up of our internal values and belief systems. The teams and their functionalities depend on the values and belief systems of the individuals found in it (Inglehart, Basanez, and Moreno, 2010). Values are dependent on the belief that are long-lasting on an individual and what they deem to be essential. A such, they are the standards through which people make their choices and lead their lives. It is a belief of an individual that develops into value when there is the growth of commitment. People have different values and belief systems. Depending on how they are utilized, then they can lead to transformational leadership and support diversity.

Transformational Leadership and Diversity

Diversity has a huge role to play in work-groups performances (Gumusluoglu, 2009). These factors are interdependent in where their impacts can be both negative and positive, depending on how they have been utilized. They help in leadership decision-making and how people are likely to rely on them (Rowan and Bigum, 2012). It is the leaders who ensure that they utilize diversity within teams for them to create transformational leadership. An increase in workplace diversity requires an overall shift in some of the cultural aspects of the organization, an element which, in most cases, is easier said than done. A team depends on leadership for the promotion of diversity or changes in the workplace culture.

Some of the significant contributors in the workplace or team diversity include financial incentives, which hence lead to a healthy relationship between members in the organization or team. There has to be a lot of commitment from leadership if at all, the organization wants to experience cultural respect, cultural competence, and to promote diversity.

McGraths Task Typologies

According to McGrath and Kravitz (1982), the four types of team tasks represented in group dynamics literature include mixed-motive tasks, cognitive conflict tasks, decision-making tasks, and intellective tasks.

Circumplex group task model undertakes the activities that are goal-related in an organization is a step further in distinguishing among the tasks that entail cooperation tasks, group members, and tasks that lead to group members conflicts. Conflict tasks of types 7, 6, 5, and 4. (Inhelder, 2015) According to McGrath, the group tasks in a circumplex model leads to distinguishing of jobs that require behavioral tasks action and conceptual tasks that need conceptual view.

Levels of Interdependence

Pooled interdependence

Pooled interdependence is the most open interdependence type of interdependence. As much as all business units are not the same, it is worth noting that they offer contributions that have the same primary goal. As such, when there is a failure in one department, then the entire purpose or project is bound to fail. Team members are supposed to work independently in sharing unstructured or loose responsibility for reaching specific goals. The goals for the implementation of new policies to allow for the elevation of employee satisfaction hence ensuring employee autonomy (Levine and Moreland, 2006). However, if one team becomes unproductive, the policy would be replaced with ones that are stringent since there is a specific department that did not utilize it well. As such, everyone suffers if one team fails to make policies function.

Sequential Interdependent

This kind of independence means precisely as its name infers. Here, there are possibilities that a team or department can be doing better than the other, or before they can wrap up their functions. Products need to be assembled before wrapping fully and wrapped before it is shipped (Gill, 2013). As such, they are skipping or not going through the various steps that might derail the whole process. Sales and marketing teams can be used as an example of this kind of interdependence. The sales team depend on their funnel filled that have qualified persons to perform their job. Sequential interdependence allows for companies to be more beneficial. Sales are not likely to follow when there are no qualified leads provided by the marketing teams.

Reciprocal Interdependence

Sequential interdependence and reciprocal interdependence share a common attribute that their model where a given team depends on the output or performance of their teams to accomplish their objectives. Reciprocal interdependence is, however, a two-way street in which both departments rely on each other hence making all of them responsible for the accomplishment of tasks and goals. As such, it is a cyclical workflow (Zein, 2016). As a cycle continues, the company becomes more and more profitable. A business hence brings about scale to business through the recruitment of more quality talent. As such, if one department or cycle fails to function process, the entire process would fail according to the model.

Fundamentals of launching a team

The success of projects depends on how successful the teams in those projects were launched. There are a few key factors that are essential in the process of launching successful teams. The first step is having to go through the process of picking the members of the team. This element has a long-term benefit regardless of the length of time taken to recruit the respective teams. Investing money and time in people who specialize in the needs of the company has substantial later om payoff (Ryan, 2005). The next step is evaluating the value that each member plays or brings on the table. It is the role of the recruiters to ensure that they ensure that every individual feels their job matters in the whole process of creating a successful team.

Other factors that are essential in the process of building successful teams include communication, setting goals that the team will be adhering to, being open-minded to celebrate successes and embrace failures, and having to know each other.

Bibliography

Fujisan, R., 2007. Creating Effective Groups. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Gill, R., 2013. Theory And Practice Of Leadership. London: Sage.

Gumusluoglu, L., 2009. Transformational Leadership, Creativity, and Organizational Innovation (Excellence of Citation Award). SSRN Electronic Journal.

Inglehart, R., Basanez, M., and Moreno, A., 2010. Human Values And Beliefs. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Inhelder, B., 2015. PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT. Psychology Press U.K.

John, O., Robinson, R., and Pervin, L., 2011. Handbook Of Personality. New York: Guilford.

Lebed, F., and Bar-Eli, M., 2013. Group Dynamics And Team Interventions. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

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Raad, B., 2000. The Big Five Personality Factors. Seattle, WA: Hogrefe & Huber.

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Ryan, P., 2005. Strategies For Success. [San Diego, Calif.]: IDEA Health & Fitness Association.

Zein, M., 2016. Professional development needs of primary EFL teachers: perspectives of teachers and teacher educators. Professional Development in Education, 43(2), pp.293-313.