How personality affects work behaviour and career success

Understanding one’s personality can help an employee modify behaviour at work, play to strengths,
improve on weaknesses, interact with coworkers more effectively and ultimately lead to career
success.

According to research by new a UCL School of Management assistant professor , personality plays
a strong role in career success.

“Personality matters for many reasons. One reason has to do with fit – how well a person’s
personality fits the job, the team, and the overall organization. Poor fit is a major cause of conflict
and turnover,” Landis said. “Personality will affect whether people are hired, promoted, derailed, will
help others, be seen as a leader, and so on.”

Gaining an understanding of different personality traits can help workers grow and managers
engage more effectively with their employees.

What are the “big five” personality “a person’s distinctive patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.
It derives from a mix of innate dispositions and inclinations along with environmental factors and
experiences.”

The concept encompasses how someone behaves over time instead of during a single instance.
Generally, a person’s core personality traits do not change drastically in adulthood.

“Sometimes people get fired because they make a bad decision, but oftentimes it’s what you’re
repeatedly like across many situations —i.e., your personality —that drives a lot of the outcomes
that we all experience in life,” Landis said.

There are different ways to measure personality, and popular personality assessments used in the
workplace include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the and the Big Five Inventory.

“Big Five” personality traits

AGREEABLENESS: compassion, respectfulness, trust and the tendency to go along with others.

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: organisation, productivity, responsibility and the tendency to be careful

and hardworking and to follow rule.

EXTROVERSION: sociability and assertiveness

NEUROTICISM: tendencies towards sensitivity, negative emotions, anxiety and depression

OPENNESS TO EXPIERENCE: curiosity, creativity and appreciation for new ideas, values, feelings
and behaviours

Some personality patterns may be problematic if they lead to issues such as poor attendance,
tardiness or inattention to details, Landis said. However, it is important for managers to remember
that all personality traits carry both positive and negative consequences.

“It may seem that some traits are counterproductive in every job, but every trait has a bright side
and a dark side,” Landis said. “Low conscientiousness , for example, is helpful in jobs requiring
flexibility and a willingness to improvise rather than following the rules (e.g., jazz musicians). The
same employee who lacks attention to detail may be excellent at improvising and coming up with
new and novel solutions.”

How does personality affect work performance and career success?

Well-validated according to psychologist Dr Robert Hogan, founder and president of Hogan

Assessments. Landis’ research also supports that notion.
Not only does personality directly affect employees’ performance ratings, Landis said, but it also
shapes employees’ positions in their social networks at work. Those positions help predict job
performance, as well.
“Establishing yourself as someone who people go to for advice is especially important – that’s the
position you want to achieve for maximum success,” Landis said.
As employees look to use what they know about their personalities to grow in their careers, the
most important of the “big five” traits to focus on are conscientiousness and neuroticism. Highly
conscientious, emotionally stable people tend to see more success at work, according to Landis.
“Some people have a larger challenge than others, but people can exhibit a remarkable ability to
change specific behaviors, especially when given insight into how their personality patterns are
perceived,” he said.
His research also indicates that being adaptable and adjusting how one interacts with others to fit
certain situations – a concept known as “self-monitoring” – also helps fuel workplace success.
According to Landis’ research on integrating personality and social networks (PDF, 280 KB),
External link:open_in_new “high self-monitors” are approached more often for friendship,
information and advice and are more likely to bridge gaps between disconnected friends. On the
other hand, those who are inflexible (“low self-monitors”) may find it challenging to meet the different
standards that people expect in various social scenarios.
“Not everyone may appreciate the one style that you present in every situation, ” Landis said. “You
may have to present yourself in a slightly different light, engage others in a slightly different way, if
that’s not your natural proclivity.”

How can personality insights help employees succeed at work?

Taking a personality assessment can provide basic information that helps employees better
understand their own inclinations and their colleagues’ or managers’ personalities.

“One insight is just getting a sense of how other people see you,” Landis said. “The areas that you
want to focus on are when there is a discrepancy between how you see yourself and how other
people see you.”

Some employees may misjudge their negative attributes, while others may underestimate their
positive qualities.

“These misperceptions are very consequential for your reputation at work. If you see yourself as
assertive and others see you as overbearing, it can perpetuate a pattern of behavior that hurts your
credibility,” Landis said. “Similarly, if you see yourself as an insecure person whereas others see
you as quiet and humble, that discrepancy is also important to know. ”

Identifying areas for improvement can help employees begin to make small changes towards
improving their work performances.

“Can people change?” Landis said. “Yes, of course, they can. The first step to change is learning a
new behaviour that, over time, becomes a part of who we are.”

Tips for better understanding your personality

Landis offered advice for employees to gain insight into their personalities and aim to improve on
areas in which their personalities and job responsibilities do not align.
TAKE A PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT.

To begin, it’s important to have a baseline understanding of one’s personality for employers and
employees. Landis suggests the Big Five Inventory-2 test.

ASK WORK FRIENDS FOR HONEST FEEDBACK.

Close colleagues can provide honest insight on how one comes across to others.

RECORD YOURSELF.

Self-observation during meetings and presentations (when appropriate and legal) can help
employees find blind spots when interacting in different settings.

Once employees better understand how their personality affects their work habits and relationships,
they can use those insights to discuss how they prefer to be managed.

“Everyone is sympathetic to the fact that we all have our preferred way of doing things, which is
manifested in our personality ,” Landis said. “ Much in the same way that if I were to tell you that I’m
right-handed and that therefore I like to shoot a basketball this way, everyone understands that if
you’re extraverted, then you’re going to want to talk a lot and participate in social situations.”

How can managers work with different personalities to improve their teams?

Personality is not an excuse for poor performance, but managers can use what they know about a
direct report’s personality to create growth opportunities and get more out of the employee.

Employees and managers can use what they know about their personalities to discuss opportunities
for changing the nature of a worker’s tasks, providing team-building opportunities and placing
employees in optimal positions that allow them to thrive.

“It can give you insights to have those conversations, so you can anticipate where they may want to
make changes so that everyone is successful,” Landis said.

It is in managers’ best interests to incorporate a range of personalities on their teams. And

understanding the nuances of different personalities can help managers bring out the best in their
workers.
Most workplaces have a similar cast of characters—the achiever, who constantly pushes the team
to finish a project; the know-it-all, who thinks he's smarter than everyone else; the reticent
employee, who stays silent during every meeting; and the naysayer, who finds fault in every idea.

Managing these diverse personalities isn't easy, but it's important. That's because the most
successful teams are formed when a supervisor understands each employee's strengths and
weaknesses, knows how to leverage each member's unique talents, and encourages everyone to
work together.
"A great manager knows what motivates each employee and is able to adapt her leadership style to
bring out the best in that employee," said Allyson Parker, executive director of HR and chief ethics
officer at Ally Financial Inc., a financial services company in Detroit.

Seek to Understand Each Employee

Good managers try to understand what is going on in the lives of their direct reports to better
comprehend what drives them, what keeps them up at night and what they hope to achieve.

One way to do this is to engage each employee in one-on-one meetings and ask open-ended
questions to better understand their motives, said Caroline Stokes, founder of FORWARD, an
executive leadership coaching company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. However,
she warned, it's important to have these conversations "without it looking like the Spanish Inquisition
or a witch hunt." Give employees the questions in advance so you're not putting them on the spot,
advised the author of Elephants Before Unicorns: Emotionally Intelligent HR Strategies to
Save Your Company (Entrepreneur Press, 2019). "Don't critique or judge their answers," she
added. "If you do, you won't get the information you want."

Questions to consider asking include:

▪ What is your biggest strength at work?

▪ What do you like most about your current role?

▪ What is most inspiring about your work and why?

▪ Is there something you would like to learn at work?

▪ Would you like to learn from anyone in the organization?

▪ What do you want to accomplish in the next 30/60/90 days?

▪ What do you need from me to succeed?

▪ How can we best measure your progress?

▪ How would you prefer to be recognized for your achievements?

Managers may find that an employee who is acting aloof, disengaged or even aggressive might not
understand where they fit into the organization. "They might feel insecure," Stokes said. "They might
not have a mentor, might not know what they're doing, might be feeling like an imposter."

The know-it-all might aspire to be promoted and is making sure she isn't overlooked, Stokes added,
and the shy employee who is reluctant to participate might not be in the right role.

Don't Label Employees

However, Stokes warned against labeling employees. "It's a toxic habit," she said. "It leaks into how
you communicate with people." For instance, if someone is known as a complainer, the entire
department might try to avoid including that person in meetings. Or, if someone has a reputation for
being shy, she might be ignored when the team is looking for feedback.

Managers need to coach employees on how to strengthen skills that don't come naturally. For
instance, Parker said, conversations with achievers should include advice on helping them to
collaborate with others, such as "I know you're anxious to get this project done, but let's talk with
some other stakeholders first." If someone is reluctant to speak during meetings, the manager
should encourage him to express his opinion and even let him know in advance that he'll be asked
for input during meetings.

Before managers can encourage their teams to work together, they need to think about their own
reactive behaviors, according to Kevin Bush, principal at Teams and Leaders, a leadership
development firm in Seattle. "We are socially and culturally programmed to figure out what is wrong
with the other person," he said, but managers should instead ask themselves how their own
behavior may be impacting team members. A good manager, he explained, will reflect on his or her
own behavior before judging an employee for being difficult, being slow to respond or complaining.

Bush recommends that managers pause before responding when they believe an employee is
being difficult and try to look at the problem from the employee's point of view. "As a manager," he
said, "you need to let go of your own needs first to understand others'."