Personality Paradoxes – by Kimberly D.
Elsbach
Personality
is commonly defined by five traits – what are call the “Big Five” personality
traits. [1] These traits have been shown to be predictive of life outcomes, and
include: (1) Openness to experience – a person’s degree of intellectual
curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety, (2)
Conscientiousness –a person’s tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully,
and aim for achievement, (3)
Extroversion –a person’s tendency to have high energy, positive emotions,
urgency, assertiveness, sociability and seek stimulation in the company of
others, (4) Agreeableness –a person’s tendency to be compassionate and
cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others, and (5)
Neuroticism– a person’s tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such
as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability.
When
constructing a team, it’s often a good idea to find people with the right
personalities for the team task. For
example, if you are putting together a team to develop creative ideas for
improving your customer service, you might start by finding people who appear
to have high openness to experience and high extroversion. By contrast, if you were putting together a
team to de-bug a software program, you might look for people who were high on
conscientiousness. These choices seem
intuitively right.
But
it turns out that intuitive ideas about personality traits and team composition
are not always correct. Recent findings
suggest that some personality traits may benefit teamwork in counter-intuitive
ways. For example, recent research on
innovation in teams has shown that the most innovative teams are those that
have at least some conformists (i.e.,
people low on low on openness to experience). [2] Specifically, creative teams
that have 10-20% conformists are the most innovative. This is because too many creative members can
be disruptive to a team (i.e., they don’t like to follow rules), but
conformists help keep the team on track and make sure the team doesn’t
disintegrate into bickering.
Another
non-intuitive finding about personality and teams relates to team leaders. When identifying people who are good
prospects for leading teams, you might think that a person high on extroversion
(i.e., someone who is outgoing and likes being around others) would be the
right choice. Yet, recent research
findings suggest that introverted leaders might actually be a better choice in
some situations.[3] In particular, when
leading a team where other members are proactive and have some expertise (e.g.,
working in a restaurant where all of the staff provide suggestions on how to
improve service), introverts may actually outperform extroverts in terms of
motivating team productivity. The reason
is that introverted leaders are more likely to listen to others and carefully
consider and implement their ideas. By
contrast, extroverted leaders are less likely to listen to others’ ideas and
may even be threatened by the prospect that others have better ideas than they
do.
In
a related manner, business professionals have recently reported that top
performing sales teams are often those that have members who are low on
“gregariousness” (i.e., preference for being with other people and
friendliness) – which is related to extroversion.[4] In this case, the reason that too much
extroversion gets the sales team in trouble is that it leads to lower levels of
perceived dominance by prospective customers .
That is, perceiving a salesperson as a “regular” person may lower your
perceptions of him/her as a dominant expert, and in turn, may lower your
willingness to follow his/her advice.
Together,
the above examples illustrate the complexities of personality and the
importance of understanding team environments when considering personality in
team construction. The right person for
the job is not always as obvious as it might seem.
[1] See Judge, T. A., Higgins, C. A., Thoresen, C. J. and Barrick, M.
R. (1999), The big five personality traits, general mental ability, and career
success across the life span. Personnel
Psychology, 52: 621–652.
[2] See Why Conformists Are a
Key to Successful Innovation, by Ella
Miron-Spektor | 9:00 AM October 2, 2013,
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/why-conformists-are-a-key-to-successful-innovation/
[3] See The Hidden Advantages
of Quiet Bosses by Adam M. Grant, Francesca Gino, and David A. Hofmann, http://hbr.org/2010/12/the-hidden-advantages-of-quiet-bosses/ar/1
[4] See Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople, by Steve
W. Martin | 9:10 AM June 27, 2011,
http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/06/the-seven-personality-traits-o/
