Personality is complex and varied from person to person and across culture as well. This complexity in personality is due to the personality traits possessed by individuals. Personality traits are the reason behind the personality development. Good personality traits lead to proper personality development that will boost the individual professionally.

We are going to discuss the Big Five Personality Traits Model in detail and some other good personality traits as well.

Big Five Personality Traits

Psychologists have identified thousand of personality traits that can affect individual behavior. But recently, they have identified five personality traits considered to be fundamentals because of the importance of the organization. They are commonly referred to as Big Five Personality Traits. The best way to remember the Big Five Personality Traits model is to recognize the acronym OCEAN.

The Big Five Personality Traits can be measured in two extremes, either high or low. So, all the discussion will be concerning these two extremes.

Openness

This trait measures the individuals’ inflexibility of beliefs and range of interest. It encompasses someone’s desire to try a new idea, an innovative mentality, and creative thinking. People with high openness will be more flexible; they love to listen to new ideas, beliefs, and attitudes. Those who are less open; are rigid and don’t accept changes.

The innovative and creative organization will hire only those individuals who are enriched with openness.

Conscientiousness

            It is all about order and cares an individual imposes on its workplace activities. This trait measures the activeness of a person on the job. Other than activeness, it also measures whether one is organized, responsible, systematic, and self-disciplined.

According to the finding of the research, high scores on conscientiousness indicate a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

Extroversion

This trait indicates the degree to which a person is friendly, talkative, and assertive, whereas the opposites are less sociable and more introverted.

According to Friedman H, Schustack M (2016), in a research finding. Extraverted people may appear more dominant in social things, as opposed to introverted people in this setting.

Agreeableness

This trait reflects the individual differences in general concern for social harmony. People with this trait are generally considered to be kind, generous, trusting, and trustworthy, helpful, and willing to compromise.

Agreeableness also positively predicts transformational leadership skills. In an article, “Which Personality Attributes are most important in the workplace?”.

Paul Sackett and Philip Walmsley claimed in research findings of conscientiousness and agreeableness are; “important to success across many different jobs.”

Neuroticism

It measures the emotional stability of an individual. Persons with high emotional stability tend to be calm, resilient, and secure. Those with less emotional stability will be excitable, insecure, reactive, and subject to extreme mood swings.

It is a trait characterized by sadness, moodiness, and emotional instability.

Other Good Personality Traits at Workplace

Besides Big Five Personality Traits, several other good personality traits influence behavior in an organization. These are discussed below:

Locus of Control

It is the extent to which an individual believes that his/her behavior has a real effect on what happens to them. People with an internal locus of control are hardworking. They think that their lives are in their power. They also tend to be good at freelancing.

People who think forces beyond their control dictate what happened to them are said to have an external locus of control. Employees who fail to get a promotion may attribute the failure to their bad luck because of the external locus of control.

Organization prefers those candidates who have a high internal locus of control.

Self-efficacy

            It’s a person’s belief about his or her capabilities to perform a task. People with self-efficacy believe that they have the abilities and skills to complete a task. On the other hand, people with low self-efficacy tend to doubt their abilities to perform a task.

Employer likes to hire people with high self-efficacy, because of their being more self-assured and more able to focus their attention on performance.

Authoritarianism

It is the extent to which people believe that power and status are appropriate within hierarchical social systems like organizations.

Highly authoritarian people also accept the orders from someone with more authority because the other person is boss.

Less authoritarian people are more likely to question things, express disagreements, and even refuse orders with some reason objectionable.

A highly authoritarian manager may be relatively autocratic and demanding. They also want their subordinates to accept this behavior from their leaders.

Self-esteem

Believing in one-self is self-esteem. A person with high self-esteem is more likely to seek more top status jobs because they have more confidence in their abilities to achieve a higher level of performance.

A person with less self-esteem may be more content to remain at a lower-level job. Because of less confidence in his or her abilities, and more focus on extrinsic rewards.

Workplace Use of Good Personality Traits

According to a research paper published in Science Direct, “Leaders who have an understanding of how individuals’ personalities differ can use this understanding to improve their leadership effectiveness and lead to improving employees’ job performance.”

A good leader must have an understanding of the strength and weaknesses of their employees so that they can utilize adequately and keep them motivated.

Leaders assess not only themselves but also their employees based on the Big Five Personality Trait model and other good personality traits discussed above. It can result in the productive use of the workplace with efficiency and effectiveness.