What Personality Traits need to be developed by an effective manager?

Q.            WHAT PERSONALITY TRAITS NEED TO BE DEVELOPED BY AN EFFECTIVE MANAGER ?

Ans.        Personality is the sum total of what we are.  It reflects our views, characters, beliefs, attitude, knowledge, abilities etc.  We act / behave /think in a particular way because values, ethics and cultures determine to a very large extent or personality.

The following traits need to be developed are:

1.             Authoritarianism:

Authoritarian tend to be rigid in their positions, place high moral value systems and are strongly oriented towards conformity to rules and regulations.  They naturally prefer stable and structured work environments, which are governed by clean rules and procedures.

2.             Locus of Control:

Locus of control refers to an individual’s belief that events are their within one’s control or are determined by forces beyond ones control.  These personality traits are manifested in different behaviours, which are significant to managers.

3.             Machiavellianism:

Machiavellianism, a term refers to an individual’s propensity to manipulate people.  In jobs that require bargaining skills or where there are substantial rewards for winning, Machiavellianism perform better.

4.             Achievement Orientation:

Managers with a high need to achieve continually strive to doing things better. They want to overcome obstacles, but they want to feel their success or failure is due to their actions.

5.             Self-Esteem:

Managers should have a high self-esteem. People with high self-esteem believe that they have abilities to undertake challenging jobs.  They tend to choose uncongenial jobs than those with low self-esteem. High-esteems are more satisfied with their jobs.

6.             Risk Taking:

High risk taking managers make more rapid decisions and use less information in making their choices.

7.             Straightforwardness and simplicity:

It refers to an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external factors.  The high self-monitor is capable of putting on different “faces” for different audiences.  Managers high in self-monitoring can show considerable adaptability in adjusting their behaviour to external situational factors.

Managers should be emotionally stable:

1. Managers should have a very cordial relation with others in the organization and he should build harmonious environment in the organization.
2. He should have an excellent rapport with  his superiors, peers as well as  his subordinates in the organization.
3. He should be stable enough i.e. instead of getting evaluated by others he should gain importance by his own views.
4. The decisions taken by an emotionally stable managers are rational an anxiety levels are low.
5. An emotionally stable manager has detached involvement towards his work and he is not worried about the consequences of actions i.e. his actions are rational.