Description

MANAGING INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR

The SLP for this course involves making a personal assessment of a relevant set of skills, focusing on your strengths and identifying any weaknesses that may have been revealed. You will then create a plan by which you can “grow” your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. By the end of the project, you will have a personal management profile and action plan.

As we have discussed, your values and attitudes interact with your personality to create a strong effect on your work life. The fit between an individual’s personality and a company’s “style” is essential to job satisfaction. Someone who is risk-averse, for example, would probably be unhappy at 3M, a company with a reputation for innovation and risk-taking.  Understanding the impact of your own personality on others helps you build productive work relationships with peers, subordinates, and bosses, alike. 

Refer to the required and optional sources for this module, and any other materials which will help you in understanding personality styles and how they affect organizational effectiveness.  Remember to follow Trident’s guidelines for masters-level writing. (See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper.) 

Assignment 

Click on this link to access and complete the Jung Typology personality test. After you complete the test, you will want to read the description, but in order to fully understand what this test measures, you should also review “Personality Type explained.” Then review the pages on career choices, learning style and communication skills. Incorporate this information in formulating your responses to the questions below.

Include the actual results in an appendix at the end of your paper. (Note: This appendix requirement will likely increase your paper’s Turnitin similarity score; however, your professor is aware of this.)

Prepare a 3-page essay that addresses the following: 

How does my personality type affect my career and effectiveness at my job?

Discuss:

  • What did the test reveal about you?
  • What can you infer from this test about your strengths and weaknesses?
  • How does what you have learned from your module background materials about your personality type affect your motivation? Is this limited to a specific type of situation?
  • What specific steps can you take to increase your strengths and build up weaknesses?

Refer to at least two module readings plus any other materials to help you in understand personality styles and how they affect organizational effectiveness. Complete the assessment according to the guidelines. Include the actual results in an Appendix section as the last page of your paper.

Follow the writing guidelines and other sources listed under the Optional Materials heading on the Module 1 Background page

Module 1 – Background

MANAGING INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR

Required Sources

Values, Attitudes, and Perceptions 

Often, we assume that the way we perceive and experience the world is the same way other people do. This assumption is false and can lead to ineffective leader and manager behaviors. Understanding how attitudes and perceptions influence individual behavior and performance at work is important to organizational study. Read how personality, values, perceptions, and attitudes affect work behaviors.

Luthans, F., Luthans, K. W., & Luthans, B. C. (2015). Chapter 5: Personality, perception, and employee attitudes. In Organizational behavior: An evidence-based approach, 13th Ed., (pp. 102-129). Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing. Retrieved from the EBSCO database in the Trident Online Library.

Many people believe that a happy worker is a productive worker, but research tells us that people can be highly satisfied with their jobs and still not get much done! Nevertheless, organizations have reasons to care about employees’ satisfaction with their jobs.

The following reading is an excellent explanation of the job satisfaction model and why it is important to maintaining a highly productive workforce.

Redmond, B. F. & Bower, C. P. (2015). Job satisfaction. In Work Attitudes and Job Motivation. Retrieved from https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/PSYCH484/11.+Job+Satisfaction

Motivation and Job Design 

With a variety of values, perceptions, and attitudes, people are not motivated by the same things. The following reading summarizes key theories to help you understand what motivates you and those around you. Be sure to watch the 4-minute video at the start of the article.

Motivation and motivation theory (2015). In Reference for Business: Encyclopedia of Business(2nd ed.) Retrieved from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Mar-No/Motivation-and-Motivation-Theory.html

Learn about the importance of job design in creating and maintaining a work environment that employees will find motivating. See the following talk on the Job Characteristics Model of Motivation: 

Theories of Motivation: The Job Characteristics Model (2015). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUWsFHQsbh0

Goal Setting 

Since the 1960s, management scholars have touted the effectiveness of setting high, but achievable, goals in attaining high levels of performance from employees. The following article reviews goal-setting theory and how to put it into practice. 

Chin, D. (n.d.). How to motivate employees using E. A. Locke’s goal-setting theory. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/motivate-employees-using-ea-lockes-goalsetting-theory-24176.html
EPM. (2018, October 23). Locke’s goal setting theory of motivation [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtX_Ueh0j-E

Once we understand the power and potential of goal-setting, it is easy to overdo it. Here is a cautionary tale from the Harvard Business Review

High goals often improve performance, but they also exacerbate unethical behavior: In one research exercise, the participants given the hardest math problems were 84% likelier to cheat than other participants, on average. The researchers—David T. Welsh, of the University of Washington, and Lisa D. Ordóñez, of the University of Arizona—say that demanding tasks deplete people’s self-regulatory resources over time, and that managers should be aware of the negative organizational consequences of consecutive rigorous goals.

Source: Stat Watch (2014). Harvard Business Review, 92(6), 28. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

Optional Sources

Experiential Learning

Hay Group. (2012). What is Experiential Learning? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZeAdN4FB5A

Early Management Theorists 

To gain an understanding of the evolution of management thinking from a historical perspective, see this excellent article: 

History of organizational behavior. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.wisdomjobs.com/e-university/principles-of-management-and-organisational-behaviour-tutorial-366/history-and-evolution-of-organisational-behaviour-12812.html

The following paper is an overview of four important areas of management theory: Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management, Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Works experiments and the human relations movement, Max Weber’s idealized bureaucracy, and Henri Fayol’s views on administration. It will provide a general description of each of these management theories together with observations on the environment in which these theories were applied and the successes that they achieved. 

Kerns, D. (n.d.). An overview of management theory. http://www.kernsanalysis.com/sjsu/ise250/history.htm 

Trident Online Library

Trident Online Library Tutorial

Assignment Template

The APA-formatted Case/SLP Template has been adapted from the templates used in ETH501. You can adapt it to create your assignments in this MGT501 course. This same information will be useful for you in the rest of your degree program.