Individual Personality and “BIG FIVE” traits at work

Whenever organizations look to hire or promote an individual right from the bottom of the pyramid to CXO, they definitely look for skills required to perform a job in addition to that equal weightage is given to “Attitude”, I was looking for answers to this question as

1. How do you define an Attitude?
2. How is it related to the outcomes at work?
3. How does it impact other people in the organization?

Research says that “Personality Matters” because it foresees how an individual behaves at his work and has a direct impact on his individual work, understanding business/customer needs, nurturing his team, which in turn relates to outcomes.

Research-based on construct-oriented approach using “Big Five” traits explains the personality of an individual and how it impacts the job performance that is important to an organization and is aligned to the larger goals and vision of the organization across industries and skills

The research defines “Big Five” traits as follows

1. Conscientiousness
2. Emotional Stability
3. Extraversion
4. Agreeableness
5. Openness

Now let us look at how these traits influence the work and the outcomes in an organization.

Managers definitely care about the personality and it is hard for any manager to accept an individual who is careless, irresponsible and low in achievement striving ( This is called conscientiousness) at the same time manager would not want any individual who is hostile, insecure and depressed( Low in Emotional Stability)

There is no surprise here on the two traits I have discussed above are very important but organizations keep making mistakes as they do not give importance to such personality traits during their organization design as much of weightage was given to the ability and skills an individual has to perform the job. Recent advancements have clear evidence that personality traits have a positive performance at work.

“Big Five” Traits & Job performance
Although “Big Five” personality traits are related to the work performance, they differ in their impact, for example, meta-analysis have shown that the two predictors Conscientiousness and Emotional stability are more important as they affect the performance of all the jobs ( irrespective of industry and level at which an individual is in the organization pyramid), these two personality traits exemplify “Will Do” attitude or motivation component. We need to understand the difference between “Will Do” and “Can Do”, the first one is a result of an attitude and the latter one depends on general mental ability or skill to perform the job.

Research also reveals the other three personality traits, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Openness to Experience, are valid predictors of performance, but only in specific niches—for specific occupations or for some criteria.

For example, Extraversion plays a very important role in sales and marketing functions where you need to seamlessly connect with lots of people and connect the dots, which has a positive impact on the sales pipeline of an organization, which in turn affects the growth of an organization.

Agreeableness also was found to be an important trait where an individual job involves significant interpersonal interactions, especially when you manage large teams, which involves especially when it involves teamwork and nurturing team.

Finally, Openness to Experience has been found to be related to creativity and to influence the ability to adapt to change. This particular trait is very important in today’s world of Digital Transformation & Innovation, where organizations and individuals need to adapt to changing personal behaviors and channels, which contribute more innovation at work.

Finally, research concludes that when the criteria relate to “getting along” performance, the best predictors are Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. In contrast, when the criterion reflects “getting ahead”, the best personality predictors were a facet of Extraversion (Ambition), Emotional Stability, and Conscientiousness.

The common agreeable personality traits that are applicable to both the criteria of getting along and getting ahead seems to be Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability

The above research indicates the personality trait and corresponding measure when used alone, it will be interesting to see how to maximize the performance prediction when relevant personality traits are used together. It is appropriate to consider all relevant personality traits jointly when examining the predictive validity of personality traits through performance metrics such as “Job Satisfaction”, “Leader Emergence”, “customer service” etc..

Research shows that personality contributes incremental validity in the prediction of job performance above and beyond that accounted for by other predictors, including general mental ability and biodata

Specifically, the results demonstrate that there are enduring relations between personality traits (e.g., Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability) assessed in childhood, and career success assessed in late adulthood

Diverse research illustrates that individual personality traits matter in all facets of work and our daily lives, it is time to move beyond “Does Personality Matter”

About Algoleap
We are a niche digital engineering services and technology consulting firm that specializes in Application Modernization, Digital Platform Engineering, Product Development & Data Engineering. We are a born digital company already servicing a combination of Fortune 500 clients and well-funded unicorn start-ups by helping in their transformation initiatives.

We are a growing team of top engineering talent delivering mission critical capabilities by through design thinking lead enterprise architecture, best in class engineering practices and managed innovation and at the core of our business are our people and customers.