Leaders possess a combination of personalities and leadership skills that enable them to direct the followers' actions towards achieving organizational goals. Effective organizational leadership is linked to overall organizational performance since they act as the force behind organizational achievements. Leaders' successful performance in an organization is determined by their leadership personalities, which govern the nature of communication, conflict resolution, and workplace motivation. Theories of personalities argue that individuals' personality influences their behavior and how they relate with other members in the organization. Personality represents a powerful force for determining work behavior and needs to be recognized before talking step to implement change, communicate, motivate or solve conflicts in the workplace. Personality traits of leaders fall under five groups openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The five personality traits show the difference in individuals independent of each other and show the unique patterns of individual behavior ( Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2014). An interview conducted among three individuals, two employees from Starbucks Company and another employee from Mac Donald Company, confirms that the supervisor's personality has a significant impact on communication, conflict, and motivation within an organization. Organizations are expected to develop various strategies to mitigate the effect of personality in the workplace.
Personality Trait and its Impact on Organizational Communication
An individual personality is a part of what they communicate every day. In today's fast-paced environment, a supervisor's personality determines how well they handle relationships ad communication in an organization. Research on communication in the workplace shows that supervisors' personality trait like agreeableness, assertiveness, conscientiousness, introversion, and extroversion determines the nature of organizational communication (Matthews et al., 2003). Organizational communication competency entails the ability to interact accurately, clearly, and effectively with others. Interview results show that the personality of the leader determines their ability to communicate effectively. Personality has a huge effect on the interaction because people judge others based on how they find good in terms of their communication. In the workplace, the supervisor's personality determines the relationship with the employees that shape organizational communication (Hassan et al., 2019). Strong introvert leaders prefer to keep most of the information, and their interaction with the team is minimal. On the other hand, introverts give a lot of information and openly relate with others from all levels; hence, they are termed "people." Supervisors with the personality trait of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and neuroticism engage actively in group communication and decision-making (Chamorro-Premuzic, & Furnham, 2014). Supervisors who are extroverts tend to be more sociable, assertive, talkative, and active, making junior employees relaxed when communicating with them. The first interviewee, a marketing supervisor at Starbucks Inc, reported that his extrovert personality trait, high self-esteem, and conscientiousness led to successful downward communication. Starbucks' second supervisor interviewed exhibited the personality trait of extrovert and agreeableness shown by their caring, altruism, and emotional support. Despite being competitive, a supervisor with an agreeable personality ensures every individual is actively involved by offering emotional support and ensuring an open communication line.
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The third interviewee from Mac Donald reported that his personality trait was extrovert and conscientious, leading to reduced organizational communication. The supervisor was a high Machiavellian leader who utilized a relaxed, contentious, and dominant communication style (Solaja et al., 2016). Most employees felt uneasy talking to him, and this negatively affected the upward communication. Another important personality trait of leaders that determine the nature of organizational communication is self –esteem. Leaders who have high self-esteem communicate effectively, establish close working relationship well with junior employees, and are willing to offer both emotional and professional guidance. High self-esteem leaders adapt dramatic, relaxed, friendly, open, and precise communication styles (Solaja et al., 2016). Different leaders whose self-esteem is low adapts to animated and precise communication style in the organization. These leaders prefer downward communication with minimal face to face interaction. Communication is essential for all organizational relationships and professional development. The leader's personality determines how best they can handle relationships and communication, which is further reflected in customer and employee satisfaction and overall performance.
Personality Trait and its Impact on Workplace Motivation?
Personality differences immensely affect workplace motivation by supervisors. Based on the motivation theories, there are factors that individuals require to get motivation or motivate other to achieve certain task, individual needs or management style. Motivation is considered a vital function of modern management. A study conducted by Ghani et al. (2016) shows that a major effective factor on organizational performance is the level of employee commitment, which is determined by the level of satisfaction. High performing companies like Starbucks are contributed by leaders whose traits motivate employees performance. High assertive leaders prefer. Extravert leadership style like that of the first interviewee contributes to effective communication with junior employees. During the interaction, the supervisor learns of employees' various needs and works toward motivating them by satisfying the needs. Extraverts always look for better ways to make employees happy and energetic by applying various motivation strategies leading to high employee performance (Ghani et al., 2016). Differently, introvert leaders lack good connections with employees and rarely recognize their motivation needs. Most of these supervisors are goal-oriented and usually establish strict rules that demotivate employees.
As shown by the second interviewee, there is a close relationship between openness and employee motivation. Supervisors with openness trait have a unique variance of employee's job performance, and they go beyond cognitive aptitude to motivate them ( Griffin & Moorhead, 2011) . Such leaders openly discuss personal and professional employees' needs and ensure they are met to increase the level of satisfaction. Conscientiousness personality trait also affects employee motivation and overall organizational performance. Supervisors who are high conscientious recognizes the importance of attaining goals. Such leaders understand employees' various needs, especially Millennials who are concerned in motivations as categorized by McClelland’s Need for Achievement Theory (Khurana & Joshi, 2017). The third interviewee's personality trait falls under low conscientiousness since he rarely applies motivation as he believes that employees need to work towards achieving an organizational goal with or without motivation. Leaders who are low conscientious fail to recognize employees' various needs and their preferred work environment thus do not apply motivation strategies apart from setting rules and policies to motivate them to perform better. Lastly, leaders with high agreeableness traits show positive job predicators and apply several motivations instead of those with low agreeableness. Leaders with agreeableness trait encourage teamwork, are warm and caring, and create a healthy workplace environment that motivates high performance (Colquitt & Jeffrey, 2009). More so, these leaders are concerned with employees' needs for growth and development hence establishes a work environment that satisfies those needs.
Personality Trait and its Impact on Conflicts Resolution
Based on the three supervisors' interview, it is evident that a supervisor's personality trait determines conflict resolution in an organization. Conflict resolution involves active interaction between the supervisor and the conflicting parties. The leader has to get actively involved in the grievances to influence the situation and minimize undesirable outcomes. When resolving conflicts, emotions and tempers rises and affect the quality of conflict resolution. The leader's personality trait affects their ability to control emotions and tempers and arrive at a suitable decision. Conscientiousness is a significant personality trait that determines how leaders solve organizational conflicts, especially those arising from change. According to Ayub et al. (2017), leaders with high conscientious traits perceive and support organizational change hence are likely to effectively solve conflict arising from change compared to those with low conscientiousness. These leaders solve change positively and develop better strategies to improve organizational performance and minimize future conflicts. Another study conducted by Myszkowski et al. (2015) shows that leaders with high openness to experience have a high ability to solve a conflict by applying critical thinking skills. While disagreeable supervisors promote fear and are reluctant to face new challenges, agreeable personality supports innovative conflict resolution ideas. Leaders who are more open to experience can handle and solve the conflict positively to reduce the effect of job performance.
Strategies Used to Mitigate the Effects of Personality in the Workplace
Every individual has different preferences that make up their personality type. Some personality types work better together with us, while other personalities bring conflict and division in the workplace. Organizations need to apply various strategies to mitigate personality traits' negative impact and ensure healthy working relationships.
The first and foremost strategy is to ensure every employee, supervisor, and the manager is aware of their personality style since it makes in unique when around others. When one is aware of one personality trait, it becomes easy to observe those around and avoid unnecessary conflicts. Also, awareness of one's personality style allows employees to provide information effectively to help themselves and colleagues. Understanding individual personality helps diffuse conflict before they arise and also helps one adjust their behaviors to become more receptive to the situation ( Griffin & Moorhead, 2011) . Understanding one's personality helps employees appreciate diversity leading to a healthy work environment and team work. Awareness of personality helps leaders improve their leadership style and that of employees to create a better future.
Effective communication is a vital strategy for mitigating the effect of personality in the organization. Effective communication and flexibility help organizational leaders improve their personalities as well as those of junior employees. Establishing clear communication lines makes it easy for leaders to learn about the employees' behavior and adapt different styles to solve issues and encourage teamwork ( Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2014) . For instance, introverted employees can change and become extrovert about some vital projects and contribute innovative ideas through effective communication. Organizations that build effective cooperative communication effectively mitigate the negative impact caused by different personalities.
Another strategy is to set up effective policies and guidelines to govern employees' behavior and conflict resolution. The strategy ensures that employees, irrespective of their personality traits, work towards achieving organizational goals. Organizations need to set up formal compliant process whenever an issue arises. Organizations also need to train managers to handle different personality traits effectively and act as mediators in the organization ( Griffin & Moorhead, 2011) . Since supervisors work daily with employees, they need to be trained on mediation and negotiation skills to help them handle personality issues effectively before they escalate.
References
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Hassan, N., Sumardi, N. A., & Aziz, R. A. (2019). The Influence of Personality Traits on Communication Competence.
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