The Sunday Mail
Memory Nguwi
Individual personality refers to our general attitude and behaviour across situations.
It is largely hereditary, and partly childhood experience. Personality is a permanent disposition.
Do not expect to change anyone’s personality regardless of what you do to them. If you hire someone with a bad personality, you won’t change them.
Recent research shows that personality does not change at all. What changes is that the dominant personality traits tend to mature as the person ages.
The downside of personality defects is that good and very intelligent people may fail to achieve their goals. You have probably encountered extremely intelligent people who have nothing to show for it.
You may also have met brilliant people by any measure who act foolishly. Some psychologists have called these people “Intelligent Fools”; clever but with no conscience.
Let’s look at the big five personality traits and how they influence behaviour at work.
Conscientiousness is the first one, defined as “a broad dimension of personality that encompasses a person’s predisposition to control their behaviour in socially acceptable ways,” – (Roberts, Jackson, Fayard, Edmonds, & Meints, 2009).
It reflects how organised someone is. Such people high on conscientiousness are always reliable and gets the job done according to agreed plans. The people low on conscientiousness are always late and rarely gets things done according to agreed plans.
According to research, people high on conscientiousness tend to be “self-disciplined, think before they act, are goal-directed and follow socially prescribed rules and norms” (Roberts et al., 2009). People low on conscientiousness will rarely deliver regardless of how gifted they are.
The second personality dimension is agreeableness, which corresponds to how easy-going an individual is. People high on agreeableness get along with everyone. Those low on agreeableness tend to argue a lot, even for no apparent reason. In contrast, people low on agreeableness “show lack of concern for others, are tense, irritable, and rebellious, thus they tend to display unethical behaviour “(Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009). Such people are not suitable for customer interfacing roles.
The third one of the big five personality traits is Extroversion. This trait reflects highly social people who are outgoing and very comfortable interacting with people, even strangers. These people tend to do well in jobs requiring social interaction, such as business development.
The fourth personality trait is openness to experience. This trait is associated with success in several professions. People high on this trait are open-minded. They are likely to welcome new ideas and new ways of doing things. An individual low on this trait is averse to new ideas. They stick to the traditional ways of doing things: they stick to familiar ways even if such ways are no longer adding value.
The fifth personality trait is called neuroticism. This trait reflects how emotionally volatile someone is. Highly neurotic individuals are prone to frequent changes in mood. They experience negative affect (bad feelings) most of the time. In most studies, neuroticism is the significant predictor of unethical behaviour (e.g., Camps et al., 2016; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009). Individuals low on neuroticism “value morality, loyalty, and obedience to norms. They have a sense of direction and are altruistic and emphatic” (Karim et al., 2009).
Even more lethal is a combination of low agreeableness and high neuroticism. Such individuals are ruthless and care not about how others feel. They enjoy setting people against each other as long as it benefits them.
The best way to handle personality defects in your employees is to screen them at entry. In some instances, what employers are calling non-performance is a dysfunctional personality.
