MGT501 Trident International University Managing Individual Behaviors Paper
The SLP for this course involves making a personal assessment of a relevant set of skills, focusing on your strengths and identifying any weaknesses that may have been revealed. You will then create a plan by which you can “grow” your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. By the end of the project, you will have a personal management profile and action plan.
As we have discussed, your values and attitudes interact with your personality to create a strong effect on your work life. The fit between an individual’s personality and a company’s “style” is essential to job satisfaction. Someone who is risk-averse, for example, would probably be unhappy at 3M, a company with a reputation for innovation and risk-taking. Understanding the impact of your own personality on others helps you build productive work relationships with peers, subordinates, and bosses, alike.
Refer to the required and optional sources for this module, and any other materials which will help you in understanding personality styles and how they affect organizational effectiveness. Remember to follow Trident’s guidelines for masters-level writing. (See The Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper.)
Assignment
Click on this link to access and complete the Jung Typology personality test. After you complete the test, you will want to read the description, but in order to fully understand what this test measures, you should also review “Personality Type explained.” Then review the pages on career choices, learning style and communication skills. Incorporate this information in formulating your responses to the questions below.
Include the actual results in an appendix at the end of your paper. (Note: This appendix requirement will likely increase your paper’s Turnitin similarity score; however, your professor is aware of this.)
Prepare a 2- to 3-page essay that addresses the following:
How does my personality type affect my career and effectiveness at my job?
Discuss:
- What did the test reveal about you?
- What can you infer from this test about your strengths and weaknesses?
- How does what you have learned from your module background materials about your personality type affect your motivation? Is this limited to a specific type of situation?
- What specific steps can you take to increase your strengths and build up weaknesses?
Refer to at least two module readings plus any other materials to help you in understand personality styles and how they affect organizational effectiveness. Complete the assessment according to the guidelines. Include the actual results in an Appendix section as the last page of your paper.
Here is the summary from my test results: INTJ Learning Style
INTJ
Introvert(12%) iNtuitive(28%) Thinking(9%) Judging(6%)
- You have slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion (12%)
- You have moderate preference of Intuition over Sensing (28%)
- You have slight preference of Thinking over Feeling (9%)
- You have slight preference of Judging over Perceiving (6%)
How INTJs acquire, memorize and recollect information
In INTJs, interest in learning a subject revolves around finding the answer to the question, “Why is this so?” The clearer and deeper the answer this type receives during the learning process, the greater their interest in the topic, and the greater their desire to delve deeper into the subject.
Their desire to study something is driven by a search for ideas that can answer not only fundamental questions, but also practical questions of popular interest.
INTJs are easily receptive to difficult material when it is presented in conceptual form and new information follows logically from that given before. A moderate pace is best when delivering material, because INTJs spend time forming and retaining theoretical connections between different pieces of information.
INTJs connect the information they receive to a unifying theoretical basis. They can retain knowledge remembered in this way for decades. INTJs are also capable of mechanical memorization, although the amount thus retained is substantially lower than from memory based on a generalized understanding of the material. Repeatedly presenting the same material helps INTJs remember it, but presenting it from different points of view and using various examples is even more effective.
INTJ’s are able to accurately reproduce received information, especially if it is mentally organized in a conceptual way. Mechanical reproduction is substantially less accurate, which is usually linked to this type’s relative weakness when it comes to remembering material with poor logical flow. On top of this, they are capable of highly accurate recollection of visual information that lacks logical flow, if it was received under intensely focused attention. For example, INTJs can reproduce many details of the rapidly changing scenery when driving in a car. This seems to be related to the fact that they are shutting off the reflection process when taking in the information.
INTJs learn best when teaching is systematic (e.g., an organized degree or certification program) and intensive. However, they are also able to learn material from sources not unified by a single formal learning process (e.g., individual courses or readings). Independent work with the material being studied is valuable to their learning. The difficulty of the material only increases an INTJ’s drive to understand it, and INTJs are capable of learning material on their own. Visual aids help them learn, but are not very important for their overall assimilation of a topic.
INTJs are good at actively working with material they understand and receive great satisfaction from it. They are able to apply it in concrete tasks or develop it and expand on it in an assigned direction.
INTJs have a high tolerance to high levels of learning related stress. However, they prefer to evenly distribute their efforts when learning new material, rather than resorting to last-minute cramming.
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Required Sources
Values, Attitudes, and Perceptions
Often, we assume that the way we perceive and experience the world is the same way other people do. This assumption is false and can lead to ineffective leader and manager behaviors. Understanding how attitudes and perceptions influence individual behavior and performance at work is important to organizational study. Read how personality, values, perceptions, and attitudes affect work behaviors.
Luthans, F., Luthans, K. W., & Luthans, B. C. (2015). Chapter 5: Personality, perception, and employee attitudes. In Organizational behavior: An evidence-based approach, 13th Ed., (pp. 102-129). Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing. Retrieved from the EBSCO database in the Trident Online Library.
Many people believe that a happy worker is a productive worker, but research tells us that people can be highly satisfied with their jobs and still not get much done! Nevertheless, organizations have reasons to care about employees’ satisfaction with their jobs.
The following reading is an excellent explanation of the job satisfaction model and why it is important to maintaining a highly productive workforce.
Redmond, B. F. & Bower, C. P. (2015). Job satisfaction. In Work Attitudes and Job Motivation. Retrieved from https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/PSYCH484/11.+Job+Satisfaction
Motivation and Job Design
With a variety of values, perceptions, and attitudes, people are not motivated by the same things. The following reading summarizes key theories to help you understand what motivates you and those around you. Be sure to watch the 4-minute video at the start of the article.
Motivation and motivation theory (2015). In Reference for Business: Encyclopedia of Business(2nd ed.) Retrieved from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Mar-No/Motivation-and-Motivation-Theory.html
Learn about the importance of job design in creating and maintaining a work environment that employees will find motivating. See the following talk on the Job Characteristics Model of Motivation:
Goal Setting
Since the 1960s, management scholars have touted the effectiveness of setting high, but achievable, goals in attaining high levels of performance from employees. The following article reviews goal-setting theory and how to put it into practice.
Chin, D. (n.d.). How to motivate employees using E. A. Locke’s goal-setting theory. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/motivate-employees-using-ea-lockes-goalsetting-theory-24176.html
EPM. (2018, October 23). Locke’s goal setting theory of motivation [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtX_Ueh0j-E
Once we understand the power and potential of goal-setting, it is easy to overdo it. Here is a cautionary tale from the Harvard Business Review:
High goals often improve performance, but they also exacerbate unethical behavior: In one research exercise, the participants given the hardest math problems were 84% likelier to cheat than other participants, on average. The researchers—David T. Welsh, of the University of Washington, and Lisa D. Ordóñez, of the University of Arizona—say that demanding tasks deplete people’s self-regulatory resources over time, and that managers should be aware of the negative organizational consequences of consecutive rigorous goals.
Source: Stat Watch (2014). Harvard Business Review, 92(6), 28
Optional Sources
Experiential Learning
Hay Group. (2012). What is Experiential Learning? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZeAdN4FB5A
Early Management Theorists
To gain an understanding of the evolution of management thinking from a historical perspective, see this excellent article:
Wertheim, E.G. (2012) Historical Background of Organizational Behavior. Scribd. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/6926402/Historical-Background-of-Organizational-Behavior
The following paper is an overview of four important areas of management theory: Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management, Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Works experiments and the human relations movement, Max Weber’s idealized bureaucracy, and Henri Fayol’s views on administration. It will provide a general description of each of these management theories together with observations on the environment in which these theories were applied and the successes that they achieved.