Mgt 312 - Big Five Personality Traits

Big Five Personality Types

Shandi Kemp

MGT/312

September 22, 2015

Merrill Mayper

Big Five Personality Types

Upon taking the Big Five Personality Types assessment, I learned that my strengths are; “Extraversion, agreeable, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.” (Assessment p.1) For the most part, I agree with this assessment.  I do believe that I am an “extravert” (p.1) because, I am very outgoing and I am always the first person to stand up in a meeting and volunteer or give my perspective.  For example, when I was in leadership meetings in Pennsylvania, we were set at different tables, with managers that we did not know from around the region.  Many of the managers would shy away and not introduce themselves or want to participate much in the group discussions.  I was excited to meet new people and I made an effort to get everyone talking and took charge of the table.  I do feel that I am “agreeable” (p.1) in the way that I do not conflict with others if I do not need to.  For example, this morning in my meeting, we were discussion a safety topic.  I was discussing an incident that had happened and what could have done to avoid it.  My team, knowing that I encourage them to add to the discussion and collaborate, was contradicting some of the “ways to prevent” that I was discussing.  Instead of saying, “No, this is right”, I listened and we discussed this as a team and we agreed upon some of the countermeasures as a team.  However, I do feel this can be one of my weaknesses as well.  As I evaluate myself, often times I have found that I may have been too agreeable and should have handled a situation in a different manner.  I can also agree that “conscientiousness” is one of my strengths.  When I am given a task at work, I do everything in my power to encourage my team to meet the goals and I work diligently to complete my tasks on time.  If I cannot do this, I let my boss know and ask for an extended deadline and explain why.  For example, I was asked to dig into my depot’s service numbers for last week and send my boss a reply as to why the service percentage was only 72% last week.  (This is how we are judged on our quality of customer service.)  I was given a deadline to have this completed, but I also had meetings to hold, interviews to conduct, and customer issues to resolve in the morning.  I had explained this to my boss and he extended the deadline to 1 pm.  I worked meticulously until I had efficiently completed all of the tasks and had the information to my boss on time.  “Emotional stability” (p.1), has not always been a strength for me so I was glad to see it in my assessment.  When I first began in management, I would be emotionally involved and would lash out at people when they did not complete their tasks or when I felt someone had wronged me.  However, I knew this was a weakness for me and I began to dedicate time to resolving this and turning this around.  I still have times when I get upset and I say something that I should have just held in, but it has gotten much better.  For example, I had a driver who had come to work in a very bad mood.  I was talking to another driver when I heard her yell and curse at one of her peers.  I stopped what I was doing and asked her to please step into my office.  She put her hand in my face and told me she did not have time for me.  In the past, I would have gotten upset and fired her on the spot.  However, I politely told her that she would not be running a route in the state she was in, asked her to take three days off, write down the pros and cons of her job, and return to me, three days later, with a positive attitude and her paper so we could discuss the situation after it had calmed down.  I can honestly say the assessment was dead on in showing me that my highest scoring strength was “openness to experience” was a dead on fit.  I am, and have always been, very curious and I am always learning and engaging with individuals to gain new knowledge and ideas.  I had a boss once tell me, “never stop learning and you will succeed.”  I took this to heart and I strive to learn something new, whether it is an idea, a fact I did not know, etc. I do strive to be creative and use innovation within myself and those around me to think out of the box.  For example, in my meeting this morning, as I was collaborating with my team, I asked my team to tell me what their personal goals are.  I was inquisitive after watching the videos in the class this week and decided that I really wanted to put this into action and see if it worked.  Then, we discussed the goals of the company and the next step will be when I pull them aside this week and conduct one with ones to see how we can make the company goals combine with their personal goals to increase performance and overall job satisfaction.  I found it to be a great idea and was curious to put it into action for myself.  I feel that some of my other weaknesses would be that I do care too much and I speak out more than I should.  I know these are my other weaknesses simply by consistently evaluating myself.  There are times when I see an individual struggling, knowing that they are not right for the job, but I give all of my efforts to this person until they eventually leave.  I have had employees that I have spent months on a truck with, every day because, I feel like if they are not successful then I have failed them.  Then, they turn around and quit anyway because they do not like the hours or they just do not like the job. I feel that an individual’s personality drastically influences their job and their future success.  If a person is an introvert, they are more likely to not speak up when there is a problem, but simply do what is necessary to complete the job so that no one approaches them about poor performance.  However, in my experiences, these individuals are also less likely to exceed expectations which in turn, lessens their chances of being promoted within the company.