Keith McDowall is the vice president, sales and marketing at Prime Technology. He is in charge of the company’s sales and marketing initiatives and oversees the company’s general business development strategy (Prime technology, 2016). In addition to such roles, McDowall is also the Facility Security Officer. In this capacity, he is tasked with making sure all sensitive data is secure and that DOD regulations are followed to the letter. He has been at Prime for more than three decades and holds degrees from Connecticut School of Electronic.
The Five-Factor Personality Traits for McDowall
Extroversion
A person who has a high score regarding extraversion is considered to very energetic, talkative, assertive, sociable, and tends to possess positive emotions ( Nahavandi, 2016 ). Also, such an individual seeks motivation in the company of others. From the interview it was clear that McDowall scores highly in this traits. First, he claims that he does not hide his opinions from his juniors or seniors in the workplace. For instance, if he sees something wrong in the way one of his juniors is carrying out a certain task, he is quick to point it out. He describes himself as “forceful yet friendly” in the manner in which he interacts with his juniors. However, McDowall insists anyone in his position needs to make their juniors understand that a manager’s forcefulness is directed towards the work, not the person so that they may feel intimidated.
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Neuroticism
A person who is referred to as neurotic is one with a tendency to go through a moment of vulnerability, depression, anxiety, or experience unpleasant emotions such as irritation ( Nahavandi, 2016 ). Thus, the lower one score in neuroticism, the more emotionally stable they are. McDowall holds that he is rarely driven by emotions, especially anger, in the workplace. According to him, his rank in the company demands that he should be an example to the rest. Sales and marketing often attract situations whereby McDowall is likely to be irritated by one of the junior employees. However, he understands that the people working below him are various social orientations and have divergent needs. He developed emotional stability after several years in the business, though, and admits that he was occasionally carried away by anger and anxiety in his initial years at the company.
Agreeableness
This trait assesses a person’s tendency to show compassion and cooperation instead of suspicion and antagonism towards other people ( Nahavandi, 2016 ). One inference that can be made concerning McDowall’s relationship with his juniors and colleagues is that he is a very compassionate leader. He is always willing to offer his assistance in the workplace, especially to those who work directly under him. He says that a “senior member of an organization needs to remember where they were before they got to where they are right now”. If one keeps this in mind, then they would be kind and affectionate towards their juniors. However, he urges caution and points out that if he becomes too compassionate, then some employees may take advantage of it and reduce the effectiveness of his department. Thus, he always finds a way to create a proper balance. Overall, McDowall has created very close relationships with some of the other members of the company and even receives at least two dinner invitations every year from some of the junior sales personnel.
Conscientiousness
A conscientious person is always competent, goal-directed, dutiful and self-disciplined ( Nahavandi, 2016 ). McDowall claims that every day he strives to be more self-discipline and competent than the previous day. This is a slogan he says he learnt from his parents, who were also salespeople. For instance, he is never late to work, unless “something significant enough” prevents him from arriving on time. Additionally, his competence and goal oriented behavior has earned him “employee of the year” three times in the past eight years. As a result, many of his colleague try to emulate him.
Openness to Experience
This trait involves one’s tendency to appreciate unusual ideas, adventure, and variety of experience ( Nahavandi, 2016 ). McDowall asserts that it is important for a person in his position to remain curious because the world and, therefore, the sales and marketing environment is ever-changing. When in meetings with colleagues, he often comes up with unusual proposals for sales and marketing. Even though the current sales and marketing strategy is doing well, he always tries to find ways of making it better. He even encourages his juniors to have a similar mindset.
Conclusion
This discussion has provided a five-factor personality trait evaluation of Keith McDowall, who is the vice president, sales and marketing at Prime Technology. Overall, McDowall possess the right personality traits for his position in the company. Having such a leader in the company is likely to improve and maintain its effectiveness in the long term.
One of the experiences that demonstrate McDowall’s personality is when he had to dismiss one of the company’s regional managers. McDowall always insists that monthly sales reports are to be written by the regional sales managers themselves and there should not be any delegation of this responsibility to a junior employee. However, one of the regional sales managers, who was also friends with McDowall, was found to have submitted a report written by another employee. In any other scenario, McDowall would have let it go with a warning but the regional sales manager was unapologetic over the issue. As a result, he was dismissed by McDowall. McDowall understood that the company was going to lose several clients because of this dismissal but other employees had to realize that the company’s regulations had to be followed to the letter. The most important lesson he learnt was that even though compassion increased trust and effectiveness in the company, it has its limits.
References
Nahavandi, A. (2016). The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition . Pearson.
Prime Technology. (2016, December). About Prime technology. Retrieved from Prime Technology website http://www.primetechnology.com/
