TOURISM MANAGEMENT

LECTURE 12
«Personality in
Management»
 Over the years, researchers
have attempted to identify those
traits that best Describe
personality. The two most well-
known approaches are the
Myers Briggs Type Indicator ®

(MBTI) and the Big Five

Model.
 MBTI®
One popular approach to classifying
personality traits is the personality-
assessment instrument known as the MBTI . ®

This 100-question assessment asks people

how they
usually act or feel in different situations. On
the basis of their answers, individuals are
classified as exhibiting a preference in four
categories: extraversion or introversion (E or
I), sensing or intuition (S or N), thinking or
feeling (T or F), and judging or perceiving (J
or P).
These terms are defined as follows:
 • Extraversion (E) versus Introversion
(I). Individuals showing a preference for
extraversion are outgoing, social, and
assertive. They need a work environment
that’s varied and action oriented, that lets
them be with others, and that gives them a
variety of experiences. Individuals showing a
preference for introversion are quiet and shy.
They focus on understanding and prefer a
work environment that is quiet and
concentrated, that lets them be alone, and
that gives them a chance to explore in depth
 • Sensing (S) versus Intuition (N).
Sensing types are practical and prefer
routine and order. They dislike new problems
unless there are standard ways to solve
them, have a high need for closure, show
patience with routine details, and tend to be
good at precise work. On the other hand,
intuition types rely on unconscious processes
and look at the “big picture.” They’re
individuals who like solving new problems,
dislike doing the same thing over and over
again, jump to conclusions, are impatient
with routine details, and dislike taking time
 • Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F).
Thinking types use reason and logic to handle
problems. They’re unemotional and uninterested in
people’s feelings, like analysis and putting things
into logical order, are able to reprimand people and
fire them when necessary, may seem hard-hearted,
and tend to relate well only to other thinking types.
Feeling types rely on their personal values and
emotions. They’re aware of other people and their
feelings, like harmony, need occasional praise,
dislike telling people unpleasant things, tend to be
sympathetic, and relate well to most people.
 • Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P).
Judging types want control and prefer their
world to be ordered and structured. They’re
good planners, decisive, purposeful, and
exacting. They focus on completing a task,
make decisions quickly, and want only the
information necessary to get a task done.
Perceiving types are flexible and
spontaneous. They’re curious, adaptable,
and tolerant. They focus on starting a task,
postpone decisions, and want to find out all
about the task before starting it.
 Combining these preferences
provides descriptions of 16
personality types, with every person
identified with one of the items in
each of the four pairs. Exhibit
summarizes two of them. As you can
see from these descriptions, each
personality type would approach
work and relationships differently—
neither one better than the other,
just different.
 More than 2 million people a year
take the MBTI in the United States
®

alone. Some organizations that have

used the MBTI include Apple, AT&T,
®

GE, 3M, hospitals, educational

institutions, and even the U.S.
Armed Forces. No hard evidence
shows that the MBTI is a valid
®

measure of personality, but that

doesn’t seem to deter its widespread
use.
 How could the MBTI help managers?
®

Proponents believe it’s important to know these

personality types because they influence the way
people interact and solve problems. For instance, if
your boss is an intuition type and you’re a sensing
type, you’ll gather information in different ways. An
intuitive type prefers gut reactions, whereas a
sensor prefers facts. To work well with your boss,
you would have to present more than just facts
about a situation and bring out how you feel about
it. Also, the MBTI® has been used to help
managers better match employees to certain types
of jobs.
 The Big Five Model

In recent years, research has shown

that five basic personality dimensions
underlie all others and encompass
most of the significant variation in
human personality. The five
personality traits in the Big Five
Model are:
 1. Extraversion: The
degree to which someone
is sociable, talkative,
assertive, and comfortable
in relationships with
others.
 2. Agreeableness: The
degree to which someone
is good natured,
cooperative, and trusting.
3. Conscientiousness: The
degree to which someone is
reliable, responsible,
dependable, persistent, and
achievement oriented.
 4. Emotional stability:
The degree to which
someone is calm,
enthusiastic, and secure
(positive) or tense, nervous,
depressed, and insecure
(negative).
5. Openness to experience:
The degree to which someone
has a wide range of interests
and is imaginative, fascinated
with novelty, artistically
sensitive, and intellectual.
 The Big Five Model provides
more than just a personality
framework. Research has shown
that important relationships exist
between these personality
dimensions and job performance.
 For example, one study examined five
categories of occupations: professionals
(such as engineers, architects, and
attorneys), police, managers,
salespeople, and semiskilled and skilled
employees.
The results showed that conscientiousness
predicted job performance for all five
occupational groups. Predictions for the
other personality dimensions depended on
the situation and on the occupational group.
 For example, extraversion predicted
performance in managerial and sales
positions—occupations in which high
social interaction is necessary.
Openness to experience was found to
be important in predicting training
competency. Ironically, emotional
security wasn’t positively related to job
performance in any of the occupations.
 Another study that looked at
whether the five-factor model could
predict managerial performance
found it could if 360-degree
performance ratings (that is,
performance ratings from
supervisors, peers, and
subordinates) were used.
 Other studies have shown that
employees who score higher in
conscientiousness develop higher
levels of job knowledge, probably
because highly conscientious people
learn more. In fact, a review of 138
studies revealed that conscientiousness
was rather strongly related to GPA.
 GPA
Grade Point Average
Additional Personality Insights
Although the traits in the Big Five are
highly relevant to understanding
behavior, they aren’t the only
personality traits that can describe
someone’s personality. Five other
personality traits are powerful
predictors of behavior in
organizations.
 Research on self-monitoring suggests that
high self-monitors pay closer attention to the
behavior of others and are more flexible than
low self-monitors. In addition, high self-
monitoring managers tend to be more mobile
in their careers, receive more promotions
(both internal and cross-organizational), and
are more likely to occupy central positions in
an organization. The high self-monitor is
capable of putting on different “faces” for
different audiences, an important trait for
managers who must play multiple, or even
 Personality Types in
Different Cultures
Do personality frameworks, like the
Big Five Model, transfer across
cultures?
Are dimensions like locus of control
relevant in all cultures?
The five personality factors studied in
the Big Five Model appear in almost
all cross-cultural studies.
These studies include a wide variety of
diverse cultures such as China, Israel,
Germany, Japan, Spain, Nigeria,
Norway, Pakistan, and the United
States. Differences are found in the
emphasis on dimensions.
The Chinese, for example, use the category
of conscientiousness more often and use the
category of agreeableness less often than do
Americans. But a surprisingly high amount
of agreement is found, especially among
individuals from developed countries. As a
case in point, a comprehensive review of
studies covering people from the European
Community found that conscientiousness
was a valid predictor of performance across
jobs and occupational groups. Studies in the
United States found the same thing.
 We know that no personality type is
common for a given country. You can, for
instance, find high risk takers and low
risk takers in almost any culture. Yet a
country’s culture influences the
dominant personality characteristics
of its people. We can see this effect of
national culture by looking at one of the
personality traits we just discussed:
locus of control.
 National cultures differ in terms of the
degree to which people believe they
control their environment.
For instance, North Americans believe they
can dominate their environment; other
societies, such as those in Middle Eastern
countries, believe life is essentially
predetermined. Notice how closely this
distinction parallels the concept of internal
and external locus of control. On the basis of
this particular cultural characteristic, we
should expect a larger proportion of internals
in the U.S. and Canadian workforces than in
the workforces of Saudi Arabia or Iran.
As we have seen throughout this
section, personality traits
influence employees’ behavior.
For global managers,
understanding how personality
traits differ takes on added
significance when looking at it
from the perspective of national
culture.