Personality and Performance Case Report

The test scores showed that among the five global factors, the client has the tendency to be unrestrained (3) while she is exhibited an orientation for high anxiety (7), extraversion (6), independence (6) and open-mindedness (4). The global factors indicate the identifiable traits that all people share hence the term global although each person differs in the extent to which they identify and exhibit the said traits. From the said scores, it can be surmised that the client has a strong personality wherein she tends to follow her own mind and is decisive.The scores also tell us that she is independent and on average is open minded but since she is unrestrained this may mean that she can accommodate other people’s views and opinions but it does not necessarily mean that she accepts it. The following is a detailed interpretation and discussion of the specific personality dimensions of each global factor. This detailed discussion would enable the client to identify the personality traits that are more dominant for her.

ExtraversionThe client’s scores in the personality dimensions in the extraversion scale are as follows: emotional distance (3), forthright/straightforward (3), group-oriented (4), liveliness (6) and socially-bold (6). Over-all, the client’s extraversion score is average (6) which means that she is not an introvert and that she has the tendency to be socially active but she is not an overly extrovert person. The personality dimensions revealed that she is on average socially-bold and lively and spontaneous, which implies that she has the ability to initiate friendships, working relationships and have average interpersonal skills.This can be an advantage to the client considering that she wants to apply for the position of administrative officer whose main function is to coordinate with different units and agencies. This job would require that the person have good interpersonal skills, can get along with different kinds of people and handle a multitude of tasks.

However, a limitation for the client is her tendency to be emotionally distant and forthright, which means that she may not be as accommodating and warm and that she speaks her mind whenever she wants to.Although it is not a sign of inefficiency, the administrative officer’s job makes it necessary for her to be accommodating and warm to many people and agencies because she has to work with them. Moreover, the position entails that she practice some tact and diplomacy especially in attending meetings or coordinating with the different charity activities and government officials, being blunt and straightforward would not make her popular with the rest of the people she has to work with if ever she takes on the job.She could be more suited to the job if she can learn to be more tactful and learn negotiating skills as well as become more passionate about her job. Anxiety The client’s scores in the personality dimensions in the anxiety global factor are the following: emotionally changeable (3), relaxed/tense (5), apprehensive (6), vigilant (7) and pertubable (7).

The client’s overall anxiety score is high average (7) which means that she may easily become anxious and tense and this would ultimately affect her performance.The client’s scores revealed that she is emotionally changeable which means that she can easily become angered and or upset and if she does not have the ability to control her emotions then she might bring this attitude to work. She is also vigilant and suspicious which means that she may have difficulty trusting other people and the trusting them enough to their own work. An administrative officer coordinates which means that she has to oversee and delegate work, if she cannot trust other people as much then she may end up having to do all the work herself which is really not an effective way to do the job.

In terms of anxiety, the job is already too anxious and this may not be good for her as she will only be stressed for long periods of time. On the other hand, if she really wants the job, learning stress and relaxation techniques and reading about emotional control may help her get past this limitation. Tough-mindedness The client’s scores in the personality dimensions in the tough-mindedness global factor are the following; emotionally distant (3), receptive (4), subjective (6), open to change (7), and abstracted/theoretical (8).The client’s tough-mindedness score is low average which leans towards the open-minded trait. This would mean that the client is non-traditional and can easily adjust to new situations and new tasks.

She is open to change and new ideas which actually work in her favor if she applies for the administrative officer position. As the administrative assistant she already has knowledge about the responsibilities of the AO and coupled with her openness for change, she would not have any difficulty in fitting in with the new demands of the work. IndependenceThe client’s scores in the personality dimensions in the independence global factor are the following: deferential (5), sociable (6), independent/persuasive (6), vigilant/suspicious (7), and open to change (7). The client’s over-all score for independence is average which means that she is independent and that she generally avoids conflict but can be persuasive when she has to be although she can be suspicious of others.

The said traits make the client a likely candidate for the job since an AO has to be able to convince the people she works with and to be flexible in her decisions and actions.The client though needs to develop this trait more since she only has an average score, she can do this by observing how other administrative officers work. Self-control The client’s scores in the personality dimensions in the self-control global factor are the following: liveliness (6), non-conforming (2), abstracted (8), flexible (4) and unrestrained (3). The client’s over-all self-control score is low which means that she has weak self-control or that she is tends to follow her own decisions, thoughts and ideas above other else.

The client’s scores also tell us that she is a non-conformist which may orient her towards trying out new things or ideas and have low regard for traditions. She is also highly abstracted which tells us that she is intelligent and likes to make theoretical assumptions about things and ideas. It is more likely that the client is more comfortable working in a desk rather than going out and talking to clients, other officers and government agencies. She is flexible indicating that she has the tendency to work towards developing self-control and maybe use her liveliness and spontaneity in working with other groups.Belbin Team Role Scores The Belbin Team Role scores are the following; company worker (1), monitor evaluator (3), coordinator (3), team worker (5), resource investigator (5), completer/finisher (6), shaper (7) and plant (8). The extreme scores point out what team roles the client is more oriented towards and tells us in which role she may play more effectively.

The scores indicate that she is a Plant which according to Belbin is characterized by being a specialist idea maker, have high intelligence and being dominant and original.She has the tendency to be more concerned with major problems and issues and have little patience for details and tend to be argumentative. The client is also a shaper which means that she is a task focused leader, tend to shape others into achieving her goals. This is reinforced by the fact that she is also not a company worker, she had very low scores in this role therefore she cannot just follow, trust and accept all that she comes across in her job. Therefore she is more of an individualistic worker than a team player.The client wishes to apply for the administrative officer position which requires that the AO be able to keep track of the recent developments and changes in the social services sector which the organization caters to as well as be able to meet with the members of the board to the workers of the departments located in different parts of the cities.

Her scores indicate that she can be an administrative officer considering that she has the capacity to lead, to make decisions, to be task oriented and achievement driven.Personal and Career Development The personality profile of the applicant strongly suggest that she has her own mind, she follows her decisions and her ideas, although she may be open to change and be flexible enough to listen to other views. Then she also has low self-control and she can be emotionally changeable and emotionally distant as well as be anxious most of the time. One’s personality makes the person unique and it also influences one’s actions and behavior both personally and in one’s occupation.Individual differences dictate that we respect people’s personality traits as the totality of the person and this would mean that there is actually no need for a person to change one’s personality if it is not a hindrance to his/her functioning as an individual.

This would mean that using the personality trait scores for personal growth should not be seen as an imposition to her sense of self. If a person is not an extrovert, then unless one is discontent with being an introvert, then one should not strive to be an extrovert.For the client, she can work with trying to have more self-control because having low self-control may be disastrous for her and may lead to behavior problems. Although she can actually use this to strive more and work towards her goals, I mean if she tends to follow through her urges and ideas, then it would be an advantage for her in terms of goal attainment. If she wants to really reach her goals, then she would do everything to reach it.

Another thing she can consider is to work with enhancing the traits that she have, for example to a certain degree she is lively and spontaneous and this can actually combat her being emotionally distant.On second thought, being emotionally distant may actually be used to compartmentalize and therefore protect her from anxiety. She also need to work with her high anxiety orientation, we know that being anxious to some degree is good because it can be used to motivate people to perform at their best but someone who is always anxious and are easily aroused by anxiety may become overly stressed. The client needs to be able to learn relaxation techniques and how to manage her time and tasks so that she would become less anxious.Being highly anxious can lead to low performance and low quality of life thus the client would benefit by changing this trait.

Over-all, the client has to really decide for her what she wants and what she is willing to change because it is her choice that would dictate whether she will be successful in it or not. Certain people are more fitted to work on certain occupations because some occupations require duties that are more oriented towards certain personality traits.Organizational psychology has espoused the importance of organizational fit because having someone in a position that is not fitted to it may only lead to high organizational costs. This is why personality and work values are assessed in the selection of candidates to the open position because it would give the organization an overview of whether the person is fitted for the job or not. Some jobs can only be effectively performed by certain personalities, for example, an effective nurse would be someone who is warm, trusting and have low anxiety.If the nurse to be is highly anxious, emotional and does not follow orders then he/she will surely be an ineffective nurse.

Therefore, the client also needs to see whether she has the personality traits that are required by the administrative officer position. An AO has to have excellent people skills, which means that she should have good interpersonal skills, knows how to listen and respect other people’s views and opinions, can collaborate and coordinate with others and to be able to delegate and support other’s works as well as report to higher entities.The client can actually take on this job, based on her personality traits she is goal oriented, she is flexible and an abstract thinker which would allow her to adapt easily to the new job however since she is a nonconformist, she likes to work alone and is emotionally distant and has no patience for working with many people, going to meetings and the like. But it does not mean that she cannot learn these things.She only needs to really want the job and then learn the skills that she needs to be an effective AO. The Belbin team role scores can also be used to determine whether she can be an effective AO, the client basically is a plant and a shaper, thus she can be an administrative officer if the job would only require technical duties such as being updated with new developments in the field, preparing reports, coming up with new ideas and activities, and achieving goals.

However the job also requires that the client be a coordinator and a company worker which the client is not since she had low scores in these factors. Objectively, the client is fifty percent fitted to the job especially when we consider the technical aspects of the job, but she needs to have personality traits that are needed in the job.