Reference no: EM132293269
Dr. Judith Sills in an article in Psychology Today recalls the story of an organizational consultant who visited a large engineering firm. He found that all the employees had something extra following their name on their plastic nametags: their Myers-Briggs personality type (e.g., INFJ, ESTP, etc.). Dr. Sills found that this highlighted an important truth in the workplace: Even after all we do, say, hear, and think, we still must interact with one another.
Sometimes these interactions can lead to conflict; of the causes of this conflict, personality clashes are the third most common, a recent survey from XpertHR suggests. For example, Tim Ursiny, an organizational psychologist and founder of Advantage Coaching, was hired by Wells Fargo to help manage some of these personality clashes that had arisen within their ranks. He suggests that many personality differences result from clashes between trait dimensions such as outspoken and reserved, impulsive and methodical, along with skeptical and accepting. It is easy to see how these dichotomies can, at least to some degree, map onto facets of the Big Five, like extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Of these types, the more dominant, impulsive types tend to engage in more conflict than the others.
Some research supports the impact of personality within teams because certain personality characteristics seem to affect whether the interpersonal conflict helps or hurts team performance. For example, when the team is composed of employees high on openness to experience and emotional stability, conflict can help their performance. However, when the team is low on these qualities, conflict can hurt performance. Additional research has explored how personality differences affect employees’ relationships with their supervisors. Employees and supervisors report weaker relationships between one another when they differ on emotional stability, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (but not extraversion).
Despite these findings, many note that personality is just one piece of the puzzle—the big picture is more complex, politically sensitive, and nuanced than differences in personality. However, if you find yourself in a potential “personality clash” situation, Dr. Sills notes that you should try to (1) resist “recruiting” coworkers to take sides (this will just add more negativity and complexity to the situation), (2) focus on the strengths of this other person, (3) reduce your contact with the other person so that the conflict occurs less frequently, and (4) develop some insight into who you are and what your personality is like (this can help you figure out what you can do or what you should stop doing in order to reduce conflict).
Questions for Discussion:
Which do you think is more important: similarity between personality types or differences? Explain your answer.
Do you think knowledge of personality similarities or differences can help employees reduce conflict and get along better? Or does this knowledge have the potential to cause harm? Explain your answer.