Employee Supervision - Profiling Employees
Today, we have over 40 different personality instruments which are designed basically to identify a person’s dominant personality type, out of which, there are four types of personality traits that supervisors observe at the workplace on a daily basis.
The supervisor or manager may improve or alter the situation by considering the employees physical, mental and emotional makeup and understanding the sources of the difficult behaviors. Let’s discuss these basic personality types, and how the four types blend together.
The four prominent types of personality traits are −
- Dominant
- Extroverts
- Patient personalities
- Conformists
Dominants and Extroverts
- They take a bigger approach, a general one.
- They are multi tasker, they do multiple things at once.
- They are natural leaders and love starting new assignments.
- They never say what they are exactly thinking, but will refer to it obliquely.
- They convey their thoughts effectively, they are very outgoing in nature.
Patients and Conformists
- They are result-oriented.
- They are natural finishers.
- They avoid structured guidelines.
- They are thoughtful and cautious.
- They are good listeners and introverts.
- They focus on inserting details in the surroundings.
- They tend to do one activity at a time, but do it with perfection.
- They say exactly what they are thinking and are good communicators.
As we can see, the dominants and extroverts are task-oriented and more people-driven. They make factual and logical decisions, tend to also take emotional decisions, rely on team extensively, are congenial and of the “happy-go-lucky” type.
Conformists tend to be alone, and accept changes very fast. They support causes passively, and make decisions based on facts and principles.
Can you identify your type? Write down the qualities that you think led you to decide your personality type. Now think of an employee who shows difficult behavior in the workplace. What type do you think he is? What qualities led you to take that decision? Now compare your profile with him and see which qualities in him are in direct conflict to the ones you have. It could be the root cause of the overall air of hostility between you both.
