Managers should consider the personalities of individuals when forming teams at work. Critically discuss this statement.
Main body
The most significant task for any manager in an organization is to consider the personalities of individuals while forming teams. Building teams is a very complex task for any manager as there may be some individuals who will not contribute to their full potential leading to minimization in the overall team effectiveness and efficiency.
Social psychology have shown that team performance has been affected by different factors. The major focus of this research was on personality factors of the team members and their interrelationship with task characteristics, but it was also found that personality and task characteristics alone cannot predict the team performance rather it also depends upon the behavioral characteristics of the team ,for instance they can include cooperation, conflicts, cohesion, work place environment etc.
In this essay we have tried to explain that managers should consider the personality traits of the individuals while allocating them to a team by the means of certain personality factors like conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability and other characteristics like surface level diversity and deep level acting.
For a team to be successful in its operations the managers must look into the personality element of each individual before allocating him to a specific team. It has been found that teams whose members have scored highest on personality factors such as agreeableness and conscientiousness are marked with higher job satisfaction.
The level of expectation and satisfaction is maximized when the team members are in a position where they know how to progress and organize their work. On the other hand if there are conflicts among the team members; that will result in low level of satisfaction.
Prior to allocating individuals in a team based setting managers should carefully analyze the personality characteristics of the individuals and their conjunction with task characteristics. For instance in a manufacturing organization managers must scrutinize the effective relationship between social skills, teamwork knowledge, personality factors (such as agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness) and contextual performance. It is interesting to know that each of the above mentioned constructs is a medium to predict the contextual performance. As compared with the traditional core technical skills; the skills such as knowledge and motivation have been given more weightage for selecting individuals in a team (Barrick , Stewart, Neubert and Mount 1998; Guion,1998) . Some other researchers have noticed that there are some problems that needs to be considered while selecting individuals to work in a team setting.(Jones, Stevens and Fischer,2000). In order to to find the solution to a problem we have taken different personality factors into account to examine how a manager should select individuals to work in a team.
As previous studies have shown that personality is an important predictor of the team performance (e.g. Barrick et al ,1998; Neuman and Wright 1999; Christiansen, Neumen and Wagner,1999) . The Managers should make use of the Big Five Traits as the composition variables in order to assess the personality of the individuals. The Five Factor Model includes Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience.
There is a significant use of Conscientiousness in a team based setting for a reason that there is a reduction in hierarchical control generating proportionate increase in need for self discipline (Mount,1998).
In organizations where the teams are highly interdependent in nature, there is a need for fundamental contribution by each of the team members to attain the long term benefit, success will come to those people who are hardworking, dependable and focused (Costa,1988). Individuals possessing high conscientiousness are characterized by these traits, this shows individuals who score high on conscientiousness are valued highly by their team members. It has been proved by (Hurtz and Donovan,2000) that there is a direct interaction between Conscientiousness and Job Performance. A research by (LePine,1997) shows that conscientious individuals are work–oriented and possess certain required behavior . Individuals possessing conscientiousness characteristic are mainly concerned towards acquisition of team goals and objectives Conscientious individuals are mainly task focused and require minimal instructions while performing their task, they largely contribute to effective team performance by doing different task within the team irrespective of their defined roles(Neuman and Wright,1999). When the work in the teams is of highly interdependent nature , it requires a lot of cooperation from the team members and it has been found that conscientious individuals are highly cooperative which contributes effectively and efficiently to team performance(Van Dyne 2001). Highly conscientious individuals were found to be directly related with helping team members in a team based setting (Hollenbeck and Moon,2003). According to (William and Harkins,1979) it has been seen that working in groups creates a better work climate and helps avoiding social loafing.
Research was conducted with members of Eugene -Springfield community where 737 individuals were considered where ages ranged between 22 to 90. The interview was based on medical drug use, over than span of 5 years 400 respondents replied back to the mail sent to them this showed Conscientiousness where final results took time to achieve rather than spontaneous response.
Research have shown, team cohesion i.e.(relational interaction amongst the team members) has been notably strengthened by Agreeableness(Mullen and Cooper,1994).
Agreeableness is a significant personality characteristic that managers should take into account while selecting individuals for a team based setting. Certain number of traits such as helpfulness, flexibility and selflessness has been emulated by Agreeableness. Working cooperatively in a team is viewed as the very essential task to achieve the goals and improve the efficiency and effectiveness, individuals who possess higher level of agreeableness characteristic are very cooperative with its team members as they are viewed as supportive, kind and helpful.
In organisations where joint ventures and collaboration is essential agreeableness becomes very significant(Witt,Burke,2002). A team can successfully achieve its goals and objectives if there is no or minimal level of group conflicts within the team ,individuals scoring high on agreeableness have a greater tendency to resolve the conflicts when they arise (Neuman and Wright,1999). If the members in the team are caring, supportive and understanding it will lead to maximization of results thereby individuals who are largely agreeable prove to be very helpful,generous and sympathetic towards other team members(Organ and Ryan,1995).
Agreeableness Example Pending
“A variety of research studies have shown that low levels of Emotional Stability are related to less helping less getting along and less team workâ€(Porter,2003)
Emotional Stability is yet another personality characteristic that managers should be aware of while selecting individuals for a team based setting. Emotional Stability may be defined as the propensity to handle stress, sustain a stable outlook and self confidence across different situations .Individuals who score less on Emotional Stability are likely to experience the negative affect (Digman,1990). Researches have indicated that individuals who possess high amount of negative emotional affect has ultimately led to unfavorable task conditions resulting in deterioration of the team performance leading to reduction in the overall effectiveness (George,1990).
It is mainly because of the reason that emotionally uncertain individuals are more prone to portray negative attitude towards the team(Le pine,2001). In a team based setting even if there is one individual who is emotionally unstable it can affect the functioning and performance of the whole team leading to negative results for the team as well as for the organization(Kenrick,1988).Further research shows, emotionally unstable individuals are unable to tolerate stress, which makes it difficult for them to manage themselves in ambiguous situations(Mount,1998).Individuals with low Emotional Stability are proven to be less cooperative with their team members which results in negative team performance; depreciating the effectiveness of the organizational goals.
Surface Level Diversity is one of the personality characteristic that managers must have a careful look at while choosing the individuals for a team.
Surface level diversity may be defined as the difference between the members of a team on the basis of demographic characteristics like age ,sex, gender, race etc(Riordan,2000). Surface level diversity can also be termed as demographic diversity(Northcraft,1999). Thus, further research shows there is an inverse relationship between surface level diversity and the team performances which can be judged using social identity and self-categorisation (Turner,1982).
NEGATIVE
Further research by Goldstein shows differences in personalities could impact teams performance (Schneider & Golstein, 1955) . Deep level acting could be defined as the difference between team members psychological characteristics. Conscientiousness could be seen as one of the personlity criteria likely to effect team performance. Maximum attitudinal dissimilarity could be seen between members of the organization and strangers form another race (Byreand & Wong,1992). Furthermore, it showed team members with lower conscientiousness were ignored in the groups. Chatmas study also showed individual value of new employees was different from their mean values at work, which showed low commitment while on duty hence leading them to quit their job.