Reflection on Personal Inventory Assessment (PIA)

Answer

As learnt in this course, organizational behavior is an area of study that is consistently attracting attention. This is mostly the case as organizations attempt to find better ways to improve their employees and the overall behavior of the organization. According to Leephaijaroen (2016) organizational behavior is the study of how human beings interact in the organizational setting either as individuals or groups. In the long run, their behavior determines the overall behavior of the firm and its associated corporate culture. Because of this, personal inventory assessments play a vital role in evaluating individual capabilities and either helping place individuals in the positions they are best suited, or the results from the assessment can be used to improve individuals and make them more productive. Guided by this understanding, this reflection paper uses the Personal Inventory Assessment (PIA) from MyManagementLab to discuss and develop two topics around two questions; first, important self-knowledge I gleaned about myself from completing the PIA exercise. Second, how I intent to apply the self-knowledge in furthering my business career or management.

1. Important Self-Knowledge Confirmed About Self from PIA

The first theme identified from the PIA exercise is that understanding one’s personality trait is a prerequisite to achieving personal and career goals. This topic is connected to organizational behavior in the sense that the assessment enables individuals to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Using this knowledge, they can work on improving the different areas of their personality that contribute towards their career growth. In addition, understanding our personalities and improving them helps in achieving longer lasting satisfaction and happiness. Likewise, understanding our personalities enables us to understand other people therefore increasing chances of forming stronger relationships. Therefore, having a deeper understanding of our personalities contributes towards improved organizational behavior. The process to self-knowledge begins with the PIA exercise. Through this exercise, I managed to confirm some knowledge about myself.

By filling in the assessment, I noted that I scored highly in cultural sensitivity. This implies that I am culturally sensitive and that I enjoy hanging out with people from diverse groups. As much as I feel competent in my ability to interact with diverse groups of people, the assessment emphasizes that I need to continuously develop this personality unless I begin losing it. Secondly, I scored highly in self-concept. Stephen, Robbins and Timothy (2017) note that a high score in this core self-evaluation index means that I have higher compilation of four traits namely; greater life control, positive emotions, positive self-esteem and high self-confidence. Apart from cultural sensitivity and self-concept, I conducted a personal inventory assessment of other five facets of personality. These facets ranged from openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. I scored highly in conscientiousness and agreeableness. My scores in openness, extraversion and emotional stability were moderate. None of these facets ranked lower than 30 points on a scale of 50. A general observation is that out of the five facets, I scored highest in agreeableness and lowest in emotional stability.

An up-close evaluation of the five personality traits revealed interesting insights that contribute towards my self-knowledge. I have learnt that I am moderate on openness. An interpretation of my results show that I am both open minded and adaptable to new situations which is a valuable attribute in the modern and rapidly evolving technologically driven society. I had a high score in conscientiousness. Mostly, the apex of this trait is characterized by being planful, dependable, and neat while the lowest extreme is associated with being disorganized, late, and impulsive. According to the results, scoring highly in conscientiousness means that I am dependable, reliable, efficient, and organized thus highly valuable to organizations. By possessing this trait, I am likely to contribute to positive outcome at my workplace. This score is reflective of my self-perception whereby I believe that I am a hard worker and can get the job done regardless of the challenges or situation.

                A moderate score in extraversion means that I value relationships and interacting with others. This trait positions me as a sociable person who has strong communication and interpersonal skills. I find comfort in expressing my emotions and ideas to others. Because of these attributes, I can easily thrive in teams or group settings. The score in the agreeableness trait was high implying that I am a moral citizen of my organization. I like following rules and tend to be likeable. Such combinations of agreeableness and wilful compliance easily endears me to the leaders and other employees. The last element considered was emotional stability. I had a moderate score in this trait meaning that I am emotionally stable especially when facing stressors and challenges. By being emotionally stable, I avoid negative emotions and thoughts while instead remaining optimistic. This creates a higher level of satisfaction and enables me become a good problem solver. This strait is associated with emotional intelligence. Surprisingly, I scored highly in emotional intelligence and moderately in emotional stability.

1.  How I Intend to Apply the Self-Knowledge in Furthering Management and Business Career

As much as knowing that I scored highly in cultural sensitivity and self-concept made me feel happy about my abilities to tolerate diversity and have a high-perception of myself, I also learnt that the results are prone to fluctuate when not developed. I therefore noted the importance of continuously performing the personality tests and evaluating my results against the prevailing organization behavior. This way, I will enhance my current perception of my behavior and traits and make them desirable in the future. An evaluation of each of the five traits will help understand to focus on in furthering my management and business career skills. I scored moderate in being open to new challenges. According to Stephen et al. (2017) the modern technology driven workplace requires individuals and leaders who are flexible, creative, and curious as this combination of traits will motivate the introduction of innovative ideas. Guided by this understanding, I need to improve my score further to make myself more adaptable to change and more receptive of organizational learning. Improving this trait means I will enhance my imaginativeness, curiosity, and originality.

As much as I scored highly in conscientiousness and believe that I am a valuable and dependable employee, the PIA exercise made me realize how vulnerable I was to complacency in the sense that I can easily feel confident with my abilities that I might ignore important skills and knowledge in my career. I think this concern affects me and I need to work on it to ensure that I consistently engage in knowledge sharing to improve my job related skills. Secondly, I noted that at times, I focused so much on minor details that were unattainable to the extent that it derailed me from achieving some goals. This level of perfectionism could deter my realization of my management and business career. I therefore intent to work on the weaknesses tied to the conscientiousness trait to be a better manager and employee.

Even though am good at teaming with other people to get tasks done, I am not as competent in networking. To be a better manager, I need to master the art of networking and master new skills of supporting colleagues. Another area I intent to improve to become a better manager is my levels of agreeableness. As a manager, my main focus will be giving back to the communities. This is a gesture of kindness that will promote the altruistic score of the company and nurture greater levels of cooperation with the locals. I further look forward to improving my score in emotional stability to high. Having a high stability means being confident and effective while a low score in emotional stability is characterized by nervousness, moodiness, and self-doubt. Given that low stability could be an indicator of stress and demotivation, I intent to engage in activities that will help eradicate stress. This includes being an active clubs member and engaging in sporting activities to relax my brain. Another area that I seriously need to work on to become a better manager and career person is creativity. I scored the lowest in this area. As recommended by Stephen et al. (2017) I need to work closely with people who have merited in creativity or analyze creative individuals to identify the qualities that enable their creativity. By improving these personality traits, I look forward to transitioning my work motivation from job orientation to a calling orientation.