Describe conscientiousness and explain how it can predict behavior at work.
Answer: The Big Five conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. Employees who score higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge, probably because highly conscientious people learn more. Higher levels of job knowledge contribute to higher levels of job performance. It is important for managers and for front-line employees. Conscientiousness, in the form of persistence, attention to detail, and setting of high standards, is considered more important than any other personality trait for job performance. It is the Big Five model trait that is most consistently related to job performance.
Valerie Clark works as a campaigner at the Oceans Protection Foundation in Japan. During campaign implementation activities, she prefers to follow structured processes and ensures her team undertakes activities in an orderly fashion. In addition, she takes responsibility for milestones to be achieved and key project activities. Her colleagues and team members find that they can depend on her for support and guidance and admire her quality of never giving up on a challenge. Explain the categories of personalities Clark would most likely fit into according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five model.
Clark's characteristic of preferring to follow structure and order categorizes her into the judging category of personality according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. According to the Big Five model, she is a highly conscientious person. This is because she comes across as dependable, responsible, organized and persistent. Her colleagues find that she never gives up on challenges and is reliable in nature.