The OCEAN Model of Personality
LEADERSHIP: OCEAN MODEL OF PERSONALITY
When one is asked to define the ideal leader, they would emphasize traits such as intelligence, toughness, determination, and vision, the usual qualities traditionally associated with leadership. Such skills and smarts are necessary, however insufficient qualities for the leader.
Often left off the list are the more somewhat softer and personal qualities, they are of course also essential. Although a certain degree of analytical and technical skill is a minimum requirement for success, studies indicate that certain personality traits effectively distinguish outstanding performers from those who are merely adequate.
The OCEAN Model of Personality can be utilized to assess a leaders’ personality and leadership traits in any particular given situation.
TRAIT APPROACH: THE FIVE FACTOR OR OCEAN MODEL OF PERSONALITY
The trait approach and the Five Factor or OCEAN model of personality gives leadership researchers and practitioners several useful tools and insights to help explain leaders’ and followers’ tendencies in consistent ways over time.
Personality traits provide a useful approach to describing distinctive, cross-situational behavioural patterns, one potential problem though is the sheer number of trait-like terms available to describe another’s stereotypical behaviours. Comprehensive research has shown that most trait-like terms people use to describe others can be reliably categorized into five broad personality dimensions.
The five major dimensions include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE:
Openness to Experience is concerned with innovative thinking, curiosity, assimilating new information and being open to new experiences. Those leaders higher in openness to experience tend to be imaginative, broad minded and curious and are more strategic, big picture thinkers.
Research has shown that openness to experience is an important component of leadership effectiveness and seems particularly important at higher organisational levels. Leaders with higher openness to experience scores take a more strategic approach to solving problems, this can help those in higher leadership or management positions keep abreast of market trends, competitive threats, new products and regulatory changes.
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS:
Conscientiousness is concerned with those behaviours related to peoples approach to work. Leaders higher in conscientiousness tend to be organised, earnest, take commitments seriously and rarely get into trouble. Those lower in conscientiousness tend to be more spontaneous, creative, rule bending and less concerned with following through with commitments.
Those with higher conscientiousness scores are more likely to be effective leaders than those with lower scores. One can argue that in many ways conscientiousness may very well be more concerned with management than leadership. Power has been defined as the capacity to produce effects on others or the potential to influence others (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy 2015).
Given that people with higher scores are better prepared, organized, goal orientated and prefer structure; however they are also risk averse, uncreative, and somewhat boring and dislike change. For example, conscientiousness is essential at the lower levels of a company, like the mailroom clerk who never misplaces a package, the secretary whose message taking is impeccable, the delivery truck driver who is always on time (Goleman, 1998).
EXTRAVERSION:
Extraversion involves behaviors that are more likely to be exhibited in group settings and are generally concerned with getting ahead in life. When someone is trying to influence or control others such behavioural patterns often become obvious. Leaders high in extraversion come across as self-confident, outspoken, opinionated and competitive.
Individual lower in extraversion generally prefer to work alone and have relatively little interest in influencing or competing with others. Leaders usually have higher extraversion scores than non-leaders given that their decisiveness, competitiveness and self-confidence can affect their ability to successfully influence a group, build a team and get results. Many scholars question whether these extraverted behaviours are exhibited to facilitate team performance or for self-aggrandizement.
There is a subset of leaders who for example demonstrate self-confidence, decisiveness and risk taking for the sole purpose of getting promoted or elected. They like to be the centre of attention, quickly bounce from one conversation or idea to another, and are prone to over-estimating their own capabilities (Hogan & Hogan, 2001).
AGREEABLENESS:
Agreeableness is a personality dimension which is concerned with how one gets along with as opposed to gets ahead of others. Individuals that are high in agreeableness come across a charming, diplomatic, warm, approachable, emphatic and optimistic. Those lower in agreeableness are more apt to appear as socially clueless, cold, moody, insensitive and somewhat pessimistic. This trait essentially concerns one’s need for approval.
Those with high agreeableness scores, despite being well liked and better at building teams than those with lower scores, they can struggle with getting results through others. This due to those with higher agreeableness scores believing that relationships trump performance, hence often have difficulty dealing with conflict, making unpopular decisions and managing performance which can negatively erode the effectiveness of their teams. The most commonly used measure of leader effectiveness is the extent to which the performance of the team or organizational unit is enhanced and the attainment of goals is facilitated (Yukl, 2011).
NEUROTICISM:
Neuroticism is concerned with how people react to stress, change, personal criticism or failure. Leaders lower in neuroticism tend to be calm, optimistic and thick skinned, hide their emotions and don’t take mistakes or failures personally. Those higher in neuroticism on the other hand are passionate, thin-skinned, moody, anxious and lose their cool when stressed or criticized.
Followers often mimic a leader’s emotions and behaviours, so leaders who are calm under pressure and thick-skinned can often help a group stay on task and work through any difficult issues.
Differences in neuroticism can be somewhat difficult to observe in predictable, routine situations but become readily apparent during times of uncertainty or crisis. Those lower in neuroticism will stay cool, calm and collected under stress, whereas those higher on this trait become nervous, tense and emotional.
Neuroticism is operationally defined by items referring to irritability, anger, sadness, anxiety, worry, hostility, self-consciousness, and vulnerability that have been found to be substantially correlated with one another in factor analyses (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Those with low neuroticism scores are generally so flat that emotionally that they have a difficult time exhibiting any enthusiasm or passion. Charismatic leaders however often have higher neuroticism scores.
Author: NIGEL CHETTY (MBA)
11th August 2019