Self-Reflection On Organizational Behavior And Personality Analysis

MBTI Analysis

Discuss about the Organizational Behaviour and Self-reflection.

This subject has reflected upon organizational behaviour. OB is the study of human behaviour in organizational settings (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Understanding the behaviour of employees in the organizational setting enables the organization to effectively cater to their employees (Miner, 2015). Through this course, I have used and analyzed tools which have assisted me in understanding my communication and conflict management abilities better. This self-reflection reports highlights my analysis of the tools that I have adopted in this course. The four tools are MBTI model, Johari Window, Transaction analysis and DISC personality model.

MBTI also known as Myers Briggs personality test help people in identifying which personality do they belong to out of the 16 personality types defined by the test (Sadeghi, 2012). I took the MBTI test and the result showed that I have an ENFP (Extrovert, Intuitive, feeling, perceiving) personality type. I completely agree with this analysis.

 In my personal life also I have always been an extrovert. I can freely communicate with new people. This test also established that I am extremely emotional and believe in my gut feeling rather than analyzing the facts and practicalities presented before me. I rarely try to judge the situation but perceive the best for me.

Through this tool I have analyzed upon various career options that would suit my personality type the most. Given my personality type, I am better suited for a career in a creative field. In fact, I have always wanted to pursue a career in arts. As a hobby, I paint and sing. After taking this test, I have been seriously considering a career in these fields.

However, I have also learnt that I need to look at life more practically in certain situations. Through this test, I have come to terms with my intuitive nature. Overall the biggest advantage of taking this test was that I was able to gain a better insight upon my career options.

There is one particular incidence wherein three of my peers and myself were working together on a project. This was recently after we had taken up the MBTI test. The results of the test helped us understand each other’s personalities better and we were able to divide different tasks of the project among ourselves in an effective manner. The test highlighted upon my creative side and this is why I took onus about the creative aspect of the project. This test is also used by various organizations to recruit employees for the most suited tasks (Kroeger & Thuesen, 2013).

Johari Window Analysis

Johari window is a tool that helps people in understanding their personality better. The four celled matrix assists in analyzing attributes of an individual’s personality that are known to self and known to others, known to self and unknown to others as well as known to others and unknown to self (Rasheed, 2015). The last cell of the matrix is a black box signifying personality attributes that exist within an individual but are unknown to both self and others. The first cell of my Johari Window depicts my extrovert, emotional, creative and often imaginative nature. Since my school days, I have been participating in various art competitions which have opened my creative side for everyone.

In order to understand the second cell of the matrix, I took honest feedback from my friends and family members about my personality. One interesting thing they mentioned was that I tend to get overtly emotional over small things which makes it easy for others to take advantage of my vulnerability.

The part of my personality that other do not know of is my immense fear of failure and my inability to take risks. I have always been interested in creative fields but owing to this fear of failure, I have been thinking or pursuing mainstream careers like finance and marketing.

This test helped me understand my strengths and instilled the confidence to pursue a career in creative fields. Since the test, I have been devoting more time to fuel my creative side. Now I would genuinely consider focusing on my strengths and preparing long term goals in my career.

The third test that I took was Transactional analysis. This test identifies that every person has two basic personality types. A parent personality type and a child personality type. As a parent, a person can be nurturing or controlling and on the other hand, as a child, a person can be adaptive or free (Hargaden & Sills, 2014). Through the test, I was able to identify that I have a dominant ‘adaptive child’ personality. This reflects that I tend to obey others. A dominant child state also reflects an important aspect of my personality which depicts that my attitude and behaviors are guided by intuition and inspiration. However, every person has different personality states which are dominant at different times.

This test has widely helped me in my conflict resolution abilities. I have often had parallel transactions which are ideally communications between two different ego states. While working in an organization there are various kinds of customers that one has to deal with. I have often had to deal with people who have a dominant parent state. I once had to deal with a client who was extremely agitated with services offered to him. This is when I recalled that the best way to deal with such a person is to bring on the dominant ‘Adult’ state and deal with the problem in an adult manner. I then asked him his exact query and tried to resolve it in a practical manner. I even offered him certain value added services in order to retain him as a client. This was possible through this test and since then I have been following the same strategy while communicating with people.

Transactional Analysis

The next test that I took was the DISC personality test. This test helps people in analyzing their personality types based on four important factors dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance (Hancock, 2016). The test results reflected that I scored the highest in ‘Influence’ and ‘Compliance’. This depicts upon my ability to comply with higher authorities and those senior to me. I have also noticed that I tend to be analytical.

I have also noticed that owing to this aspect of my personality, I tend to cater to the opinions of others. This often adversely impacts my decision making ability. Since I reached my teenage, I had always done everything after seeking guidance and permission of my parents. Even though it is a positive attribute to be an obedient child. I realized that this has impacted my decision making skills negatively. This was to the massive extent where I found it difficult to order food in a group of people at a restaurant or decide which movie to watch. The test made be self-aware of the people pleasing aspect of my personality. Since then, I started focusing on making my own decisions and tried to pay more attention to what is best for me rather than doing things to make others happy. In order to achieve that, I started making small decisions including the food that I want to order or the people I wanted to meet. I started realizing that it is a rather liberating feeling and I must continue to work upon this. Therefore, by implementing the changes recommended by this test, I became more confident and able.

These tests have been highly effective in my process of self-reflection as they have allowed me to gain a deeper insight about my own personality. This has largely improved my relationships with others as well as this has helped me in taking better control of my life and decision. MBTI test helped me make better career choices and highlighted the importance of my creativity and innovation. Post the test, I have been putting more efforts in making the right career choice in a creative field. The Johari window helped me take a feedback from my peers and also helped me in analyzing me weaknesses as experienced by my friends and family members. Post taking the test, I have been putting efforts to become more assertive and less emotionally vulnerable.

The transaction analysis test has helped in improving my ability to resolve conflicts with people and focusing upon making my ‘Adult’ personality style more dominant in order to create a win-win situation with people. Lastly the DISC personality test has helped me identifying my weakness of not being able to make decisions. I have started working on that as well. All these tests have helped me learn something new and I have also understood the importance of taking self-assessment seriously. Self-reflection helps individuals in improving upon their overall personality by working on their weakness and being better prepared to handle conflicts (Taylor, 2017).

Effective conflict resolution is imperative for the success and growth of any organization (Brubaker et. al., 2014). Similarly communication in an organization plays a vital role in ensuring employee satisfaction (Karanges et. al., 2015). All these tests combined have improved my ability to resolve conflicts and communicate more efficiently with my peers and family members. I will continue to take these tests after frequent intervals in order to improve my personality further.

References

Brubaker, D., Noble, C., Fincher, R., Park, S.K.Y. and Press, S., 2014. Conflict resolution in the workplace: What will the future bring?. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 31(4), pp.357-386.

Griffin, R.W. and Moorhead, G., 2011. Organizational behavior. Cengage Learning.

Hancock, D., 2016. To test or not to test: Assessing personality traits. Practice Management, 26(5), pp.23-25.

Hargaden, H. and Sills, C., 2014. Transactional analysis: A relational perspective. Routledge. United Kingdom.

Karanges, E., Johnston, K., Beatson, A. and Lings, I., 2015. The influence of internal communication on employee engagement: A pilot study. Public Relations Review, 41(1), pp.129-131.

Kroeger, O. and Thuesen, J.M., 2013. Type talk: The 16 personality types that determine how we live, love, and work. Dell.

Miner, J.B., 2015. Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge. United Kingdom.

Rasheed, S.P., 2015. Self-Awareness as a Therapeutic Tool. International journal of caring sciences, 8(1).

Sadeghi, N., Kasim, Z.M., Tan, B.H. and Abdullah, F.S., 2012. Learning styles, personality types and reading comprehension performance. English Language Teaching, 5(4), p.116.

Taylor, E.W., 2017. Transformative learning theory. In Transformative Learning Meets Bildung (pp. 17-29). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.