Skills Application

Euronda S. Jefferson

East Texas Baptist University

The traits that make up a good leader can vary depending on the organization, team, manager and work environment (Farrell, 2011). Leaders at all levels are under intense pressure to push harder and to go faster. The higher they go, the greater their influence and the more they are scrutinized, so self-management of personality traits becomes essential to their success. It is widely believed that personality traits predict overall managerial effectiveness, promotion rates, and managerial level attainment (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2012). In fact, of the six “building blocks of skills” include personality traits and preferences as one of the more difficult skills to change. Personality traits and preferences are usually comprised of a set of values and morals that have been instilled in a person over a period of time, making them more difficult to alter. These traits tend to be stable over the years and behavioral manifestations of traits occur somewhat automatically, so it is important for leaders and leaders-to-be to have insight to their personalities (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2012).

The Five Factor Model (FFM) provides five dimensions of personality traits that helps researchers and practitioners explain leaders’ and followers’ tendencies to act in consistent ways overtime (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2012). The personality traits include conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and neuroticism. These traits, in my opinion, are at the very core of a true effective leader. After taking the assessment, it was revealed that the scores were in line with my values.

The scores reported for me were average in extraversion; low in agreeableness; average in openness to experience; average in neuroticism; and, high in conscientiousness. These cores uncover the fact that my principal way of living is internal; things are primarily about intuition. The report...