Introduction
The success of any organization, to a considerable extent, depends on the personal qualities of its team members and their ability to work together, avoid conflict situations, and foster excellent communication. When searching for a new staff member, any enterprise can benefit from providing each candidate with a basic self-assessment survey that can demonstrate essential information on the person’s predispositions as a team player. Results of such tests may not be accurate since people may have a poor understanding of their own personalities, yet they still can help HR managers to identify certain behavioral aspects of every candidate.
Such assessments also play an essential role in determining every candidate’s value system, and unique hierarchy of preferences (McShane & Tasa, 2017). Essentially, every enterprise requires its employees to align with its organizational values that vary from one company to another. Some businesses may encourage conformity while others need innovations, and personality tests are a perfect tool for finding workers according to such requirements. Taking a self-assessment allowed me to understand my strengths as a team player better and highlighted the weaknesses that I have to improve on by following action plans.
Discussion of the Results of the Three Assessments
The self-assessment concerned my capacity to act as a team member, and it is logical to begin by discussing my results in the team player inventory segment. I scored thirty-three points, which means that I demonstrate a moderate preference for teamwork. Such a result does not surprise me since I generally believe that in a modern business setting, many tasks no longer require joint efforts and can be done by one person.
Research shows that timely access to relevant information can significantly improve the performance of employees (Attaran et al., 2019). Today, due to technology, people do not experience any information shortages and, therefore, can perform numerous tasks on an individual level. Thus, in my view, the concept of teamwork often entails a certain degree of inefficiency. This belief is reflected in the score for the aforementioned segment.
I receive similarly interesting but not surprising results after completing a self-assessment on my team-role preferences. Harmonizer is the role towards which I show the strongest preference and the one that particularly befits me and my personality. When working in a team environment, I often manage to deescalate situations that involve tension and excessive arguing. I manage to help people find common ground and resolve their problems.
I also prefer the roles of an initiator and a summarizer. In life and in a workplace setting, I always try to set clearly defined goals to be aware of the direction in which I have to advance. This ability is the result of my self-leadership, which allows me to not only set goals but also engage in self-monitoring and self-reinforcement, which helps me focus on attaining the desired outcome (McShane & Tasa, 2017). As a team player, I am capable of providing my colleagues with the objectives for our work and the ways to achieve them.
I also possess excellent analytical skills, which allow me to keep track of all the ideas mentioned during meetings and make them more palatable and succinct. In addition, I received the lowest score for the role of an encourager, which is true to reality since I often struggle to find words of support for my colleagues. I also scored slightly above average on the gatekeeper scale, which correctly describes my occasional failures to motivate others to engage in discussions.
The results of the Dutch Test for Conflict Handling generally were reflective of my style of managing disagreements and disputes. I scored twenty out of twenty on problem-solving because, in every conflict situation, I seek to find a solution that would work for both parties. Simultaneously, I demonstrate a strong preference for avoidance, which is correct because I believe that conflicts should not exist in the workplace, and trying to stay away from them is always the best strategy.
My scores on yielding and compromising indicate a moderate preference towards these conflict handing styles. These results show that I am generally not afraid of giving up my ideas in favor of the ones proposed by others if they are better. Finally, for forcing, I scored the least number of points because this type of conflict management fails to correspond to my approach. Constantly not implementing employees’ ideas can lead to a toxic work environment, which may cause workers’ disengagement and loss of motivation (Rao, 2017). Thus, I do not believe that making people engage in activity against their will can yield any positive long-term results.
How the Results Relate to Each Other and Their Impact on My Career Ambitions
The results also show a link between certain preferences that ultimately form my personality. For instance, my moderate preference for teamwork can be partially explained by my desire to avoid performing the role of an encourager. In my view, when working together with other people, every member has to demonstrate solidarity with the rest of the group. For me, it can be difficult since I often struggle to support the ideas of other individuals if I do not believe them to be reasonable and effective. This directly impacts my willingness to participate in teamwork and be effective in such a scenario.
Moreover, my high preference for avoidance as a strategy for handling conflicts also translates into a lack of desire to solve problems on a team level. In my experience, teamwork implies arguments and quarrels because there are always people who feel like they were not listened to or their ideas were not addressed. When faced with such situations, I attempt to reduce the tension by trying to find a solution that would be beneficial for everyone involved. Thus, my preference for the role of a harmonizer is directly linked to my favorite conflict-handling style of problem-solving.
My aforementioned personality traits can significantly assist me in my career advancements as an accountant but may hamper my ambitions as an entrepreneur. Accountants usually have to solve numerous issues related to the financial activity of their clients and engage in mathematical calculations. As a result, they must be voices of reason and remind the rest of the team members of the organizational goals and proper ways to achieve them.
Personally, I often acted as a harmonizer in a workplace environment and successfully mediated conflicts concerning making large investments in infrastructure and marketing by presenting my colleagues with the real financial situation of the company. Nevertheless, my current teamwork skillset may not be sufficient for me to thrive as a leader and, namely, an entrepreneur. My low score as an encourager may prevent me from providing important words of support to my employees who may need it. Additionally, my low preference for the forcing strategy of managing conflicts also may hinder my ability to lead a team. At times, it is necessary for the leader to tell employees to engage in certain activities even if they do not support them.
Improvement Action Plans
After conducting the previously discussed assessments, I identified two areas where I would require improvement, namely, as a gatekeeper and a person who is willing to use force as a conflict-handling strategy. These qualities are essential for my career as an entrepreneur and a business leader. To improve my skills in terms of becoming a better gatekeeper, I need to familiarize myself with the concept of employee empowerment, which can help me encourage workers to participate in discussions. Empowerment constitutes a process of stimulating and motivating employees to become more actively engaged in work tasks such as teamwork and discussions (Islam et al., 2018).
To ensure employee empowerment, I also need to increase my emotional intelligence since it constitutes the key to being able to understand employees’ needs and problems better, which stops them from actively participating in teamwork.
Emotional intelligence can be fostered through the inspirational influence model. This model involves becoming aware of one’s own emotions, monitoring other people’s feelings, and influencing the behavior of other people by creating emotional resonance with them through listening (McClellan et al., 2017).
As a result of implementing this model, I will be able to assist employees and colleagues in overcoming their negative emotions and replacing them with positive ones, which will ultimately increase their engagement. Thus, my action plan for becoming a better gatekeeper includes researching the mechanics of the employee empowerment process and improving my emotional intelligence to gain more competence in terms of positively affecting others.
Improving my skills in the area of becoming more willing to utilize the forcing strategy to mediate conflicts requires me to increase my extraversion. Extraversion is one of the big five personality factors, which constitutes the ability of a person to be sociable and simultaneously assertive (Northouse, 2017).
Currently, I experience difficulty with giving orders to others and persuading them to do exactly what I want them to do. This skill is extremely important for leaders, and improving it can contribute to my capacity to act as an entrepreneur. Assertiveness training is a possible way to improve one’s extraversion, and it has been proven to be effective in terms of reducing stress, increasing psychological well-being, and, most importantly, enhancing assertiveness (Parray & Kumar, 2017). Such training will let me be more skilled in terms of managing conflicts from the position of a leader and implementing the forcing style when it is necessary. Thus, my action plan for becoming more willing to use force rests on discovering the aspects affecting extraversion and utilizing strategies and techniques to improve my assertiveness and develop the qualities of an extravert.
Conclusion
Personality assessment surveys are an effective tool for highlighting one’s strengths and weaknesses, and they allowed me to understand areas in which I need to improve. The results of the test that I took indicate that I demonstrate a moderate preference for teamwork, which can be explained by my belief that today’s joint efforts can often be unnecessary. The assessment also showed that my favorite team role is a harmonizer, which is also correct since I generally try to avoid any arguments and seek to bring people together. Hence, problem-solving is my preferred strategy for handling conflicts since I believe that finding common ground is usually the best solution.
Nevertheless, to advance as an entrepreneur, I must become a better gatekeeper by enhancing my emotional intelligence and learning about employee empowerment. Additionally, I need to be more willing to engage in the forcing strategy by developing assertiveness and training to become an extrovert.
References
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McClellan, J., Levitt, L., & DiClementi, G. (2017). Emotional intelligence and positive organizational leadership: A conceptual model for positive emotional influence. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 17(3), 1–16. Web.
McShane, S. & Tasa, K. (2017). Canadian organizational behaviour (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Northouse, P. G. (2017). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Sage.
Parray, W., & Kumar, S. (2017). Impact of assertiveness training on the level of assertiveness, self-esteem, stress, psychological well-being, and academic achievement of adolescents. Indian Journal of Health and Well-Being, 8(12), 1476–1480.
Rao, M. S. (2017). Innovative tools and techniques to ensure effective employee engagement. Industrial and Commercial Training, 49(3), 127–131. Web.