Managerial Traits And Personality Assessment: A Self Evaluation

Part One: Self Evaluation

It is important for everyone to possess some managerial skills to run any organization in an appropriate manner (Heizer, 2016). In this competitive era, where all the organization is putting their best foot forward to survive in the competition, the member of the managerial department must have efficiency and skills to operate the organizational function in an appropriate manner (Bloom, et al., 2015). There are different skills that one must possess to perform their managerial duty. In this scenario, the writer prefers to adopt new skills from others that can sharpen his managerial capabilities (Hoye et al., 2015). This is one of the positive features to become a successful manager. It is important for the managers in recent time to implement new and innovative strategies every now and then to survive in the competitive market. The writer is capable of working in a team. He can cooperate with other team member and support the growth of the team. It is suitable to manage any organization.

The test has focused on some other key features that can support the performance growth of the writer, such as:

Confident: The writer has scored 6 out of 10 in confidence. It means he believes in his own capabilities and capable of taking any venture by his own which is highly beneficial for being an efficient manager. He has the confidence to complete a task in an appropriate manner. It can help him to run any organization flawlessly, as it is important to maintain the confidence level to carry out any new business venture. Confidence is considered as the key feature of every successful human being, as it helps the person to battle against obstacles and earns the desired position (Aytekin & Yildiz, 2016). In order to achieve success and accomplish the dream, a person must believe in his own capabilities. Thus, it can be stated that the writer has the capability to achieve his goal.

Achievement Driven: This trait signifies that to what extent a person can work hard to achieve the desired goal (Mujtaba, 2013). It involves the identification of the inner and personal qualities. It helps the leader to fight against the obstacles and nurture the inner quality to achieve goal (Vansteenkiste et al., 2014). The writer has high score in this section, which means he has the passion towards his dream. It is important to have passion towards the goal. It motivates people to achieve it within a short span of time. As per the report, writer is motivated by his inner drive to achieve the goal. At the same time, he has maintained a balance between his confidence with the passion. As he has passion for his dream, it does not restrict him from working hard to gain the desired target, which is highly beneficial for stimulating the performance of an organization. The writer always tries to perform every task in an accurate manner that has influenced his managerial skills. The result shows that primary objective of the writer is to get the task done accurately, instead of run for achieving the goal and that has increased the quality of the his performance. It is highly beneficial for every business organization to have such manager who concentrates in the quality of product or service, so the writer can easily guide an organization towards the right direction.  

Confident

Big five Personality Test result has been conducted to interpret the managerial traits of the writer. The test has enlightened some key managerial traits within the writer, which are very essential for any person to adopt for being an effective manager, such as:

Extraverted: The report of the personality test states that the writer is quite extrovert and prefer o grab the attention of other people. This trait distinguishes extrovert people from others. Extrovert people prefer to be the centre of attraction and to be celebrated by others (Hsu & Barnes, 2016). They always cherish their victory and love to socialize. As the writer has some qualities of extrovert, he loves while people show interest about his opinion and achievements (Hsu & Barnes, 2016). This is one of the key features of successful managers. They love to be surrounded by their teammates and are capable of presenting their views and opinion in front of the subordinates. Although, the writer has scored 50% in extraversion in the personality test, it means he maintains a good balance between the extraversion and introversion. Thus, it will be beneficial for the writer to guide his organization in an appropriate manner by using their both extraversion and introversion skills. The result shows that writer may have some desire, prestige, but he enjoys receiving appreciation and attention from others, which will be helpful for the writer to work within a team and maintain an effective relation with the team member and interact with them. In order to work as team member, it is always important to be an extrovert. It helps to present opinion or view to the other team members. In this scenario, the writer is capable of socializing and interacting with his subordinates which may work as a major strength for him to establish a strong organizational structure.

Agreeableness: Agreeableness signifies the tendency of a person to accept opinion and decision of others as well as it shows that to what extent a person is capable of cooperating with others to achieve a common goal (Hudson & Fraley, 2015). In the section of agreeableness, the writer has scored 70%. It means writer possesses the capability to listen to others views and opinion over an issue. At the same time, writer has the tendency to appreciate and accept the decision of others if he will feel that the decision is suitable for the organizational growth. It seems that the writer is capable of taking care of his teammates. The result of the test shows that the writer considers the opinion of others while taking any decision. It helps him to maintain a strong and transparent relation with the team members and earn the common organizational goal along with his subordinates.

Neuroticism: Neuroticism indicates the tendency of fear, negative emotions, sadness, anxiety, guilty, shame and so on within an individual person (Barlow et al., 2014). It shows if the person expresses his negative emotion or feeling in the form of guilt, sadness, temperament and fear or not. It is not suitable for a manager or member of any organization to have such tendency. In this scenario, the writer has achieved 43% in this section, which means he has low tendency to experience negative emotions. It means he can perform his managerial role fearlessly without any obstacle. The person that scores high in this aspect must faces various difficulties while operating the organizational function, as he is not able to perform fearlessly without any obstacle. The writer can easily keep calm during any emergency, which is beneficial for the growth of every organization. It is the primary responsibility of very manager is to protect his organization in every situation, as he works as a main pillar of the organization. Hence, writer has the capability to fight against every obstacle as well as market competition. It signifies that writer will leave no stone unturned to establish a strong organizational structure (Curtis, Windsor & Soubelet, 2015).

Achievement Driven

Conscientious: The writer has scored high in Conscientious. He has scored 65%. Conscientious signifies how people can maintain self-discipline and control (Bogg & Roberts, 2013). It means the writer is capable of overcome the self-dilemma and take notable initiative to achieve the organizational goal. It seems that the writer can achieve his long-term goal by responding to his impulses. It is important for the manager to have a clear vision of the future, so they can design their organizational structure and strategy accordingly, so it is important for the organizational manager to overcome the self-dilemma. Otherwise, it will be difficult for him to lead the organization towards the right path. The leaders must be clear about his objective and plans, otherwise he will not be able to encourage other organizational members to work as a team to achieve the organizational goal. In this scenario, it can be stated that the writer is strong enough to overcome his inner conflict and motivate other member of the organization.

From the test result it can be indicated that the power style used by the person in management can be expert power, reward power and informational power (Pierro et al., 2013).

The management style that can be adopted according to the test results is delegating responsibilities among subordinates and rewarding them on accomplishment of tasks. Since the test results shows a 7 score on achievement driven factor, therefore it can be interpreted that using reward power in management style will enable the author to accomplish a project on time.

Reward power can be used by the author to enable subordinates accomplish tasks by motivating them extrinsically with the help of rewards (Pulles et al., 2014). Rewards can be tangible and intangible.

Tangible rewards-In case of tangible rewards, the author can attach financial value to the rewards like salary hike, incentives and bonus (Pulles et al., 2014).

Intangible rewards-The value of intangible rewards can’t be measured by the author in terms of financial value. For example, public recognition, compliments and praises are forms of intangible rewards (Pulles et al., 2014).

The reward power can be used by the author to accomplish a task on deadline by promising subordinates higher pay, promotions, awards, and recognition and performance appraisal (Faiz, 2013).

Use of this type of power by the author in an organization will lead to accomplishment of tasks within deadline.

1) This kind of power can be used by the author to focus on quantity; however quality can be hampered using this type of power.

2) The power to reward the subordinates is often not in control of the author; this power is often controlled by the higher level management like the CEO and the top decision makers of the organization. The author can promise an incentive or pay hike on accomplishment of certain tasks but may not be able to fulfill his promise as the authority of reward power is under direct control of top decision makers of the company (Simpson et al., 2015).

Motivation of this type of power is extrinsic and not intrinsic. This means that the reward power loses its effectiveness when the perceived value of the rewards according to the subordinates decreases (Faiz, 2013). Each time the amount of reward given by the author to the subordinate is expected to be more in quantity than the previous time. The subordinates are not intrinsically motivated to perform the task based on intrinsic motivational factors but they are keen to complete their tasks based on extrinsic motivation of rewards. However, the impact of the reward power on the author is about achieving more with every passing time.

Extraverted

Impact of Personality of the Author in Sport Management And Use Of Reward Power In Sports Management

Sports management is of paramount importance in the Australian culture. Soccer, basketball, cricket, rugby and netball are some of the major sports that are played in Australia. Personality and power attributes of the author can be related to sports management as self evaluation of the author’s personality type can help him select a particular sport. Playing of sports will exposed the author to various unpredictable situations and performance of sports is dependent on personality type and reward power can be used in sport management to motivate athletes to accomplish tasks.

The Big Five personality traits can be linked to sports in the following ways-

Neuroticism-In sports, neuroticism of the author can negatively affect his coping strategies in stressful situation (Yatabe et al., 2015).

Extraversion- For team sports extraversion score of the author can play a vital role

Conscientiousness- Conscientiousness of the author can predict long-term sports performance.

Agreeableness- Agreeableness of the author can be linked with the low stress intensity of the sport.

It has been found out from different research conducted on sportsmen and it was found that athletes are usually more extroverted than non-athletes (Rice et al., 2016). Athletes generally exhibit a low anxiety level and tend to have a normal score on the neuroticism-stability dimension of personality. Athletes generally exhibit self-confidence and aggression than non-athletes. The author also felt the same way about neuroticism and anxiety.

Sports psychologists have tried to find out the co-relation between characteristics of personality and outstanding performance (Rice et al., 2016). Emotional calmness, focus, confidence are among the various personality related traits of the author that can determine outstanding performance in sports. The author also feels that the emotional calmness, focus and confidence are important traits of a sportsman.

There are many personality traits like individual differences (PTLID) that distinguish elite performers in sports .Some of the PTILD traits like competitive trait anxiety, emotional intelligence, hardiness, mental toughness are discussed (Rice et al., 2016).

Trait anger is connected with physical performance of the author Illegal behavior by the author is often associated with competitive aggressiveness and anger (Athan & Sampson, 2013). In sports like rugby high level competitive aggressiveness of the author can be related to high level performance and low level competitive aggressiveness is linked with high level of performance in sports like football and basketball.

Competitive trait anxiety is exhibited by the author when he perceives a competitive situation as threatening and measurement of anxiety and disruption of concentration is necessary to relate these factors to the author’s  performance (Chuang, Huang & Hung, 2015).

Emotional intelligence is of three types-knowledge level, ability level and trait level. The knowledge level of emotional intelligence is related to what the author knows about emotions, the ability level emotional intelligence is how the author implements the knowledge in practice (Campo, Laborde & Mosley, 2016). The trait level of emotional intelligence depicts how the author behaves in an emotional situation.

Agreeableness

It has been found that higher level of emotional intelligence of the author can enable him to handle a stressful situation more effectively (Laborde et al., 2014). Sportsperson who scored higher on emotional intelligence level also showed a better performance under pressure. Coaches of sports team also should score high on emotional intelligence level.

Hardiness is a combination of cognition, emotion and behaviour (Yamaguchi et al., 2017). Hardiness differentiates elite and sub-elite performers in sports.

Mental toughness encompasses a number of components like emotional awareness, resilience, optimism, ability to handle difficult situations. All these traits of the author can differentiate him from a common individual.

Self-concept depicts the way the author perceives his inner qualities. Self-concept often called self-esteem is a personality trait that can be linked to sports.

Swimming, cycling, running etc are individual sports and can be picked up by the author   whereas sports like cricket and football requires coordinating with the team. Sportsperson who score high on extraversion are suitable for such kind of sports. The author’s score is moderate in extraversion and it would require investment of additional effort by the author to play such sports

It can be indicated that the playing sports can be suitable for the author, however the author needs to put a lot of effort to be an elite performer in sports (Laborde, Breuer-Weißborn & Dosseville, 2013).

Reward power can be used by coaches or directors of boards to motivate athletes to accomplish their goals .However reward power when used on grounds of favoritism can be highly detrimental for the athletes.

The test scores of the author is suitable on confidence level and achievement driven factor

The author is confident enough to accomplish project and tasks. The author has inner drive and ambition to achieve tasks on time.

From the test results it can be interpreted that the author can use his confidence and achievement driven satisfactory score to build some special knowledge or skill which will enable him to become a subject matter expert or consultant in the relevant field. By developing this kind of skill the person can use Expert power in his management style (Northouse, 2015). 

This power can be used by the author by developing specialized skill that other people in the organization do not have.

This type of power can be used by the author to get promoted to a senior managerial position due to specialized skills and knowledge.

The author can use the expert power to build on self-confidence

The author can be trusted by others and every people of his team in the organization will seek his expertise knowledge.

Link with test results- The score on personal test indicates that the author scores 70% on agreeableness. If the author develops knowledge and skills, this specialized knowledge can be used by the person to help other people of his team.

The expert power requires higher level of knowledge and skills and the author should improve himself regularly by continuously upgrading the knowledge and learning new skills.

Neuroticism

Other people in the organizations can also gain this power by developing knowledge and skills and can be as powerful as the author.

Expert power can be used by the author to help other members of the team who lack the specialized knowledge and skills. Expert power can be used by the author in sport management by coaches to train athletes.

Informational power-Informational power is the power of access to important information like who is going to be laid off, who will be selected as the next coach or captain or the selection of players in the team.

Information can be used by the author to help someone by sharing valuable information with them or it can be used as a bargaining tool against someone. Information can be distorted, withheld, manipulated, shared or concealed.

In the year 1959, psychologists John French and Bertram Raven studied the phenomenon of the sources of power. They described five bases of power which are legitimate, reward, expert, referent and coercive

Legitimate Power-This type of power is associated with the title or position of a person in an organization because of which the person gains the legal authority or formal rights to make certain demands or orders and expects the subordinates to comply with the orders (Wellman et al., 2016).  This type of power is associated with various attributes of power like title, position and uniform. This type of power is unstable and a person loses the legitimate power as soon as he loses the position or title in the organization. This type of power is often used by the coach of a sport. The coach exerts legitimated power on the athletes and expects them to abide by his instructions. However once coach is removed from his position, he loses his power and athletes are trained by a new coach.

Referent power-This kind of power is gained by someone who has a huge base of loyal followers and is liked and adored by a huge section of the society (Baker, 2015). Referent power is gained by a person due to certain traits in his personality like charisma and other interpersonal skills.

Sports personalities are famous celebrities and the million dollar companies like Nike, Adidas etc sign them to endorse their brands. These celebs can influence the buying behavior of consumers in their country. People will buy the brad endorsed by their favorite sports celebs. For instance, Kelly Hetherington, the famous Australian athlete makes use of her referent power and is chosen as the brand ambassador of Nike.

Expert Power-Expert power is gained by someone with development of his knowledge and skills in a particular subject (Baker, 2015). A person with relevant knowledge and skills in a particular arena can contemplate on tough situations and provide solutions and guidelines to others in time of crisis. People tend to follow the experts.

In sports, expert power is exhibited by the coach of a team or the captain of the team who has the relevant subject matter expertise in the field and other players follow their instructions.

Reward power- This power comes from the ability to reward a person on accomplishment of a certain task. Promotions, salary hikes, training opportunities are examples of reward power (Baker, 2015).

An example of Reward power exhibited by the coach in sports is increasing playing time of athlete, however the control of rewarding the athletes is often not in direct control of the coaches and the board of directors of the sports usually has control over this power.

Coercive Power-This power is the authority to punish someone if rules are not obeyed or orders are not followed (Baker, 2015). The tools of coercion are punishment, threats, withholding rewards, firing from position etc.

The coercive power can be exhibited by the board of directors when the coach or the captain or any member of the teams violates law and order and does not practice fair practices in sports.

Conclusion:

As per the previous discussion, it can be concluded that there are few key features that must be possessed by the person who are looking for opportunities to lead any organization, such as- confidence, achievement driven, extraversion and so on. It helps the a person to brighten up the future of the organization and encourage other member of the organization to achieve the organizational goal. A person who has passion about his dream and self-confidence can overcome any kind of obstacle. In recent time, the competitive nature of the market has been increased in a significant manner. It has become essential for every organization to appoint a manager that has the capability to visualize the future and has clear idea about the objective of the organization. It will help him to design the structure of the organization accordingly. It is important for the manager to be the people’s person and give  enough importance to the opinion and view of other member of the team. Otherwise, he will not be able to maintain healthy relation with the other team members, which may lead the organization to face an awful situation in the nearby future.

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