Management Principles And Practice Essays - , Term Papers

Management Principles And Practice Management Principles and Practice II Research Assignment 2000 Michael Yates 990490O Although it is possible to adopt a fairly atheoritical, empirical approach to assessing personality, even psychologists make assumptions or have some preconceptions with regard to the expected outcome and nature of their research. Unfortunately, theories are often based on a minimum of actual observations of the objects of their efforts. At the very least, it should be recognised that some frame of reference, some conceptual guidelines can be helpful in assessing and explaining personality. It is obviously very important to have some explanation as to why people do the things they do and expectations of what they may do under certain circumstances. This becomes imperative when managing a business. Personality theories and personality-based assessment tools have a wide range of significant roles to play in the effective management of modern organisations. Not only do they enable and encourage employee self-assessment and self-awareness; they are also used as a selection tool in many organisations, and act as a guide for directing and interacting with employees. By knowing the employees' personality type, it is easier for management to identify whether employees will be suited to a certain type of job, enabling management to identify how employees will react to different situations and how they will go about solving problems. MYERS-BRIGGS PERSONALITY TYPE INDICATOR (MBTI) The MBTI is based upon Carl Jung's theories about the nature of the psyche. Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalytical theory and practice, was an early colleague of Freud, and for a time was his designated successor. The two men, at first, had many ideas in common, but entirely dissimilar personalities. The friendship was gradually eroded when Jung's ideas differed more and more from Freud's. Jung suffered a breakdown, and during his recovery he attempted to understand the nature of his friendship he devised his theory of psychological types. Jung realised, first of all, that he was an Introvert whereas Freud was an Extravert. Jung's final theory suggested that personality typology was based on two things: Chance and Choice, or nature and nurture. In either case, as time goes on, one's true personality type emerges in terms of attitudes towards the world, and functional preferences about how to perceive the world and how to make judgements about it. This MBTI has been developed over thirty-five years of rigorous scientific validation and is the most widely used of any Personality Indicator. It is a very useful tool to enlarge and deepen our self-knowledge and understanding of our behaviour. The MBTI is a four-dimension model, measuring personality on 4 scales, with each scale representing two ends of a continuum of two preferences. There are therefore sixteen different combinations of letters corresponding to sixteen different and unique Personality Types. Three of the scales will tell the respondent their relative preferences for either I(ntroversion) or E(xtraversion), either S(ensing) or iN(tution) and either T(hinking) or F(eeling). So if the MBTI defines the respondent as EFN, they are an extravert with preferences for intuition and feeling. For each of the four scales, everyone uses both preferences at different times, but not both at once, and not, in most cases, with equal confidence. The fourth scale of the MBTI (the Perceiving-Judging scale) will tell the respondent whether they use their preferred perceiving function of their preferred judging function when dealing with the world (ie when being extraverted). Thus, if you are an ENFJ, the respondent is an extravert who uses the feeling function when being extraverted (ie most of the time), but probably uses intuition when being introverted: as the feeling function is the one you use most it will be called the dominant function. If you are an ENFP, then you use intuition when dealing with the world, and so your dominant function is intuition. However, the validity of this assessment has been questioned. Each question provides the subject with certain circumstances, and then questions the subject as to how they would respond. However, the answer may not correspond to how you always think, feel or behave. It may only sometimes be the case, and only in some particular circumstances. Often employers use the MBTI without qualified instructors. In order for the results to be valid for the employer,