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  Below is a short description of the team types that Belbin developed.

  Team role Description

  Coordinator Acts as chairperson, coordinates action; can be manipulative.

  Shaper Energetic, drives others forward; may be insensitive to others’ needs.

  Implementer Well-organized and practical; wants to get things done; can be inflexible.

  Completer/finisher Conscientious; checks detail; can be a worrier and poor at delegating.

  Plant Comes up with ideas for the team; may be impractical and less involved in getting work done.

  Monitor/evaluator Reviews what is happening and flags when there may be problems; may seem negative and critical.

  Specialist Has or develops expertise in key areas.

  Team worker Cooperative; cares for team members and tries to smooth relationships in the team.

  Resource/investigator Good networker; can pull in useful resources for the team; can be too optimistic.

  Leadership styles

  There is something of a growth industry in developing models of leadership. Many different models are used, and different models fit different purposes. Many of these models are quite complex, and they may have a great deal of overlap with personality domains. A simpler model that is frequently used looks at how much a person focuses on making sure things get done (the task) and how much on the people being led.

  LEADERSHIP STYLE

  HIGH

  FOCUS ON PEOPLE Leader creates a comfortable and friendly environment; people are cared for but there is little direction and work output may be poor; turnover is likely to be low also. Balanced approach; provides direction and shows concern for individuals; consultative approach to decision making; output is high and turnover is low.

  LOW Leader does as little as possible; relies on the team to do the work, with little investment in the team or providing direction; output may be low and turnover high. Focused leader who provides direction; authoritarian approach with little concern for people; output is good but turnover may be high.

  LOW

  HIGH

  FOCUS ON TASK

  Selling styles

  There are many models of selling styles, but they generally focus on how someone might go about selling rather than whether they can actually sell. Below are some examples of selling style types.

  Selling style Description

  Relationship based Is sociable and friendly; relates well to others and develops trust with clients; is emotionally aware; sells through personal relationships.

  Information based Analyses customer needs and understands products well; good style for complex product lines; rational approach.

  Energy based Uses enthusiasm and drive to make sales; is confident and persuasive.

  Dark side

  There has been some interest recently on what has been termed the ‘dark side’ of personality. This involves looking at how people who have quite extreme personality traits behave. Extreme personality traits are very unusual, and only a very small percentage of the population is at the extreme. However, the impact of an extreme personality trait on a person’s behaviour could be critical. In certain circumstances, it is argued, behaviour of those at the extremes of some traits can become difficult and dysfunctional. Someone who is low on trusting could be described as shrewd, and being shrewd is a positive quality in many circumstances: shrewd people are unlikely to be taken in easily, they take a critical view of information they are given, and they check out people and assumptions rather than taking them at face value. A shrewd, astute police officer, for instance, would probably be more effective than a trusting but gullible one.

  However, shrewdness in the extreme can turn into suspicious mistrust. A high degree of mistrust might be debilitating, and assuming that all information is invalid and nobody’s intentions are what they seem could lead to paranoia and an inability to function. There would be particular concern if a manager showed these tendencies in supervising staff. To work for someone who didn’t trust you at all would be very difficult. A mistrustful manager might not share important information with subordinates, thereby preventing them from working effectively. The manager might also be overly critical of others and undermine their motivation by constantly challenging their intentions.

  Dark side questionnaires concentrate on identifying extreme tendencies in people’s personalities rather than on understanding behaviour that is more usually seen. They are usually used only for senior positions, where the negative behaviours could be most harmful and most difficult to manage. They are sometimes used in selection but more often in development activities to help managers become aware of any dysfunctional tendencies they may have.

  Unlike other personality questionnaires, the inference from dark side measures is that some personalities are undesirable. That said, it is not claimed that all people with extreme scores show negative behaviours. Rather, there is the potential for negative behaviour to develop in people identified as belonging to an extreme group.

  5 How employers use personality questionnaires

  There are a number of ways in which an employer might use a questionnaire as part of a selection exercise. They might use the questionnaire in a relatively early stage of the selection process to eliminate highly unsuitable candidates, or they might choose to use it later in the process to provide quite detailed information about individuals to support the final decision. Equally, the employer might use the questionnaire to apply quite simple selection rules – to include people who have scores in a certain region of one or more scales and to reject people who have scores in other regions of some scales. Alternatively, the employer might use the questionnaire in a more qualitative manner to understand the typical behaviour of a person. In this case they will often use the outcome of the personality questionnaire as the basis for some interview questions to verify the results and elicit more details. We will discuss these different ways of using personality profiles in more detail.

  Before a personality questionnaire can be used effectively, information about the role and the role requirements must be collected, and there are a number of ways that this can be done. Questionnaires designed for this purpose can be used, although more usually a description of the role requirements will be developed through structured interviews with relevant people. The manager in charge of the role and also sometimes senior managers, other people who work in the same role is nearly always interviewed and people who work with those in the role. This process is called job analysis.

  Once a good understanding of the requirements of the role has been developed it can be used to understand the implications for personality. For example, if the role requires frequently dealing with conflict the person will need to be reasonably confident and able to develop relationships with others. If it is critical that no errors are made someone with good attention to detail is required. For any role there will usually be a few clear personality indications that can be used to select people, but there will generally be several areas of personality for which there are no specific requirements. This means that an employer will not be looking for a specific personality profile but rather focusing on a few critical areas.

  Early in the selection process the focus of the employer is on weeding out unsuitable applicants. The idea is to create a shortlist of candidates who will be assessed at the next stage in more detail through one or more interviews and exercises. At later stages the focus changes to finding the most suitable candidates. In using a personality measure to deselect people who are unsuitable, employers will be looking at aspects of personality that relate strongly to major elements of the role. For example, someone who was strongly introverted would find a sales role, which requires constant contact with customers to develop and maintain relationships, to understand their needs and to persuade them to buy more, difficult. Someone who prefers to spend time on their own and is shy and retiring will find it hard to relate well to people in the manner required in sales. The employer might use a
personality questionnaire to sift out applicants like this. Another example might be a clerical role, where an important part of the job is to proof-read documents for errors. This requires good concentration, attention to detail and a capacity to tolerate repetitive tasks. People who seek excitement and tend to look at the big picture rather than focusing on detail would be unsuitable for this sort of role, and using a questionnaire could sift them out early in the selection process.

  At this stage it is most likely that the employer is looking at only a few aspects of behaviour strongly related to the job and is only sifting out people who are extremely different from the desired behavioural style. Often these decisions will be based on previous research that shows how personality results relate to job performance. It is unlikely that the employer will want to talk to you about your profile at this stage, although they may be willing to provide some feedback to you on your results.

  When a personality questionnaire is used at a later stage of selection there are two main ways in which the information is used. One is similar in some ways to the early shortlisting use of the questionnaire, but the employer may be interested in more aspects of personality. In previous examples we saw that a highly introverted person would not be suitable in sales and a highly excitement seeking person would not be suitable for close, detailed work. At the next stage the employer might consider the degree of extroversion or excitement seeking of the individual as one aspect of the individual’s job suitability. The individual is assessed not simply by looking at some scores as suitable and others as not suitable. Rather, there will be an assessment of how suitable the person is. The more extrovert the person, the more suitable in one respect the person is for the role. However, now the employer will be thinking about suitability in a multi-faceted way. A number of aspects of the role will be under consideration, and the person may be thought to fit well to some but less well to others. There will be a profile of fit to the role to be evaluated and compared with other candidates. The personality profile will not provide information about all the aspects of the role but may provide information about a number.

  Figure 4: Example of a candidate’s job suitability profile

  ASPECT OF ROLE HOW IS IT ASSESSED? RATING OF SUITABILITY (1 = highly unsuitable; 5 = highly suitable)

  Communication skills Interview 3

  Developing relationships Personality questionnaire 4

  Team working Personality questionnaire 3

  Relevant experience Interview + references 2

  Flexibility Interview + personality questionnaire 4

  Problem solving Interview + exercise 3

  Computer skills Interview + exercise 2

  Another way of using personality questionnaires at this stage of selection is to review qualitatively what the person’s personality profile implies. For this purpose an experienced interpreter of profiles will provide a written or verbal report based on the individual’s profile. Alternatively, a computer-generated report may be used. These are profile interpretations generated automatically using complex expert systems that encapsulate the interpretative skills of a test expert.

  Typically, the report will relate to both the strengths and weaknesses of the individual against the job requirements, but it will also provide a flavour of how the person might go about different types of task. The employer does not have a particular personality profile in mind but wants to consider how this person might function in the role and fit in to the organizational culture. In this case, the whole personality profile is considered. This interpretation of the profile will often raise some queries about how the individual will perform in the role, and these are noted down to be explored further at interview. In addition, the employer may want to confirm the results of the questionnaire through a discussion with the candidate. This will check whether the experiences the candidate describes at interview match the behavioural style that the personality questionnaire suggests. For instance, if the personality results suggest a person who is a slow and careful decision maker the employer might ask the candidate to talk about a recent important decision they have taken and consider whether the two accounts are consistent.

  The nature of the role will determine how the employer will relate to a particular result and what aspects of the profile they will concentrate on. For a sales role, for example, the aspects of the personality profile that are relevant to relating to people and developing relationships will be one focus. For an administrative role, on the other hand, the information about the degree of structure in the working style is likely to be more relevant.

  Example personality profile and report

  Below is the example of a personality profile we looked at earlier. It is followed by a possible interpretation report based on these results. Again, it should be remembered that only an outline of the traits measured by the questionnaire has been presented. In real life the actual results and the interpretation would depend on exactly what had been measured and in what detail.

  Figure 5: Jay’s personality profile and report

  Unstructured <> Structured

  Introvert <> Extrovert

  Down to earth <> Imaginative

  Independent <> Sympathetic

  Anxious <> Relaxed

  Interpretation of Jay’s personality profile

  Jay has completed the ‘example’ personality questionnaire. This is a broad measure of personality with five scales. Jay’s results have been compared to a large group of job applicants and incumbents representative of the UK population.

  He has described himself as someone who has quite a structured approach to his work. He is likely to prefer to plan and organize his work before starting. He will prefer to work in an environment where there are clear procedures and will follow these wherever possible and expect others to do the same. He has described himself as having a good eye for detail and as someone who is concerned to produce high-quality work to deadlines. This strong need for planning and structure may mean that he finds it difficult to change plans at the last minute or respond flexibly in a crisis. He may find it difficult to work with others who are less organized than he is.

  Jay is someone who enjoys new experiences and is curious about the world. It is likely that he will enjoy learning and developing new skills. He has described himself as being imaginative and may tend to concentrate on ideas at the expense of the practical side of things. However, his creative thinking style may help him in problem solving and finding innovative approaches to his work. In addition, his organized approach is likely to help keep him grounded and maintain his focus on what needs to be done.

  In terms of his relationship with others he has described himself as moderately extrovert, meaning that he does have some need to interact with others and is capable of developing good social skills if he does not already have them. His responses suggest that although he is not exceptionally lively he will be happy meeting new people and should be reasonably comfortable developing new relationships. However, he will also be tolerant of times when it is necessary to work with little interaction with others provided this is not constantly the case.

  He has described himself as someone who balances the needs of others with his own need for autonomy. He is as sympathetic as the next person and is likely to be willing to help when others have problems. He should be able to work well in a team and be amenable and willing to compromise to meet team goals. However, he is likely to speak up when he feels strongly on a topic, and in these cases will not always be swayed from his own ideas to follow the group consensus.

  His profile suggests that he is quite an anxious person. This may express itself in terms of general worries about work and other aspects of his life. His anxiety may also be a source of nervous energy for him. He may find that getting on with his work, checking for errors or making sure that details are correct helps allay his fears about potential problems or failure. He may become quite nervous before important events, such as presenting in front of a meeting. As someone who likes struct
ure in his work, he may find that having clear instructions and procedures helps him keep calm. His anxiety may also show itself at times of crisis when the usual procedures may need to be abandoned and a new approach found.

  Overall, the profile suggests that Jay is someone who would work well in a structured environment but who is likely to prefer to work where there is some variety or opportunity for some creativity in working or problem solving. He is likely to be moderately good at developing and maintaining relationships, and his organized approach may make him a good team member. Of some concern is his anxiety level, which is quite high, and it would be useful to explore how well he copes with stress and in an emergency.

  Relating personality profiles to jobs

  The way an employer might relate to the information provided in Jay’s profile (see above) would depend on the job requirements in question. His profile is suitable for a typical administrative or clerical role, and he might also be well suited to work in a general call centre. However, he would be less suited to working in highly stressful environments, such as those in emergency services, or in those that required a lot of flexibility, such as a travel representative. While the profile contains a mix of positive and negative statements about Jay, the employer will focus on the statements most relevant to the role in question. If this leaves mainly negative statements it suggests that Jay would be unsuitable. If it left mainly positive statements Jay is more likely to be suited to the role.

  In making decisions the employer would look at a variety of information about a candidate. Although personality is important, it is never the sole criterion for selection. The person’s skills and abilities are usually considered first, and experience is also often an important factor. After these comes the way a person approaches their work, and personality questionnaires are one source of information on this, but they will be supplemented, generally with an interview and often with other exercises as well. The personality profile is only one part of the jigsaw.