Question

Lussier and Achua (2012) propose that it is important to understand individuals' personalities when leading. How does the Big Five Model of Personality help a leader lead?

Answer 1

The big five personality traits are

1. Openness to experience – This factor reflects the degree to which a person’s curiosity, preference and creativity is imaginative or experiences a variety of activities. High openness leads to risky behaviors. Low openness are mostly data-driven and contribute less to the team work.
2. Conscientiousness – This factor depicts the tendency of a very organized behavior, self-disciplined, aims higher for achievement, plans efficiently.
3. Extraversion- This factor refers to extent an individual is sociable, talkative and has positive emotions.
4. Agreeableness- This factor reflects the tendency to be compassionate with others. Also, it reflects cooperativeness with others.
5. Neuroticism- This factor reflects the tendency to explore negative emotions with ease such as anger, depression, anxiety, etc.

As Lussier and Achua (2012) proposes the above factors is pertinent for a leader to understand the personality traits of the team members. If the leader does not understand these traits of the individual, then the leader needs to practice an autocratic leadership style which exhibits negativity in the leader. A good leader should work in harmony with the team members and should not promote any negativism with them. An autocratic leadership style results in high attrition rate. With the big five model, the leader can depict accurately the patterns of behavior of individuals over a period of time. The leader also would be able to identify the preferences, emotional mood and dependability factors based on these five models. These are very important to lead a team of members because the leader deals with a conflict of individuals and not robots. For example, the U.S Air force psychologists used the big five model to identify the relationship between agreeableness and stability. To conclude, the big five model uses strategies to assess, diagnose and develop the personality of individuals. These factors are imperative for understanding the individuals to lead the teams effectively to achieve organizational goals.