How Emotions, Personalities, and Attitudes Affect the Workplace
Organizations employ individuals from different backgrounds and with diverse personalities. The workers also have varied ways of expressing their emotions and attitudes, and these have a significant impact in the way they carry out their duties. The way in which the employers and employees react affects the environment in which they work, and this can resonate with other employees. It is, therefore, imperative to devise mechanisms of capacity building to ensure that the varied personalities, emotions, and attitudes do not reduce the productivity in a given workforce.
Emotions are defined as the physiological, behavioral and psychological episodes expressed towards an object, person, activity or an event. These have a direct impact on the way that employees react towards the direction given by the employers or to the consumers. Also, the way employees feel and react towards the workers have an impact on the productivity and job satisfaction (Henle & Gross, 2014). For instance, emotional employees might react negatively towards customers, and they may get a bad image of the business. According to Wagner et al. (2014), since unsatisfied customers can influence others to avoid the services given by a given institution, negative emotions have the possibility of reading to a loss in a significant market share. On the other hand, emotions that depict enthusiasm, elation, delight, and tranquility can improve consumer satisfaction.
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Personality refers to the characteristics, emotions and behaviors and patterns of thought. Since nature is innate, it cannot be changed. In the workplace, personalities affect the productivity of employees in different occupations (Van Kleef et al., 2015). For example, extroverts would make effective sales persons. Some theorists have linked personality with attitude, but research indicates that the two can be studied separately. Attitudes refer to the tendency of individuals to evaluate the situations around them, and this determines the way they treat people, objects and events either positively or negatively and this has an implication in the workplace. For instance, an individual who might have a negative attitude towards African Americans may fail to give them excellent services or a supervisor who is biased toward workers from a particular background can be subjective or even discriminative.
More than one millennium after Benedict walked in this world; the values that he instilled are still upheld in organizations that aim at creating a model environment for the relationship of different parties. Businesses can live up to these values in several ways. First, they can uphold respect for individuals, their ideas, backgrounds, ethnicity, religion, language, and sexual orientation (Rost et al., 2010).This would give an opportunity for individuals to express themselves receive satisfactory services from an organization.
Secondly, to practice responsible stewardship, organizations should ensure the efficient use of resources to avoid wastage. The management should also train their employees to be productive in their different occupations and allow them enough time for leisure (Rost et al., 2010). This would not only enhance job satisfaction but also promote physical, mental, and reserve time for spiritual growth. Benedict was also categorical o the importance of teaching values to new generations to enhance the continuity of model society. In a workplace, organizations should orient new employees to their culture and ensure that they learn under the guidance of experienced individuals.
Conclusively, emotions, attitudes, and personality are intricately related, and they affect the way individuals carry out their functions in an organization. Positive emotions and attitudes create a conducive environment for the delivery of services. On the other hand, negative emotions and attitudes result in intolerance that leads to a flawed delivery of services. Also, people’s personalities also determine their productivity in different occupations. The Benedictine values of respect, efficiency, and value transition can be instrumental in creating model organizations.
References
Henle, C. A., & Gross, M. A. (2014). What have I done to deserve this? Effects of employee personality and emotion on abusive supervision. Journal of Business Ethics , 122 (3), 461-474.
Rost, K., Inauen, E., Osterloh, M., & Frey, B. S. (2010). The corporate governance of Benedictine abbeys: what can stock corporations learn from monasteries?. Journal of Management History , 16 (1), 90-115.
Van Kleef, G. A., van den Berg, H., & Heerdink, M. W. (2015). The persuasive power of emotions: Effects of emotional expressions on attitude formation and change. Journal of Applied Psychology , 100 (4), 1124.
Wagner, D. T., Barnes, C. M., & Scott, B. A. (2014). Driving it home: How workplace emotional labor harms employee home life. Personnel Psychology , 67 (2), 487-516.
