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 2- to 3-page essay that addresses the following:
How does my personality type affect my career and effectiveness at my job?
Discuss:
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.
Your paper will be evaluated using the criteria on the SLP rubric (see the rubric for more detail): Assignment-Driven, Critical Thinking, Business Writing, Effective Use of Information, Citing Sources, and Timeliness.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
Source: Stat Watch (2014). Harvard Business Review, 92(6), 28
Experiential Learning
Early Management Theorists
To gain an understanding of the evolution of management thinking from a historical perspective, see this excellent article:
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.
Writing
APA Formatting
Resources from the APA:
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.