This is “Personality, Attitudes, and Work Behaviors”, chapter 2 from the book Management Principles (v. 1.1). For details on it (including licensing), click here.

For more information on the source of this book, or why it is available for free, please see the project's home page. You can browse or download additional books there. To download a .zip file containing this book to use offline, simply click here.

Has this book helped you? Consider passing it on:
Help Creative Commons
Creative Commons supports free culture from music to education. Their licenses helped make this book available to you.
Help a Public School
DonorsChoose.org helps people like you help teachers fund their classroom projects, from art supplies to books to calculators.

Chapter 2 Personality, Attitudes, and Work Behaviors

Figure 2.1

Successful organizations depend on getting the right mix of individuals in the right positions at the right times.

© 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

What’s in It for Me?

Reading this chapter will help you do the following:

  1. Understand the roles of personality and values in determining work behaviors.
  2. Explain the process of perception and how it affects work behaviors.
  3. Identify the major work attitudes that affect work behaviors.
  4. Define the concept of person-organization fit and how it affects work behaviors.
  5. List the key set of behaviors that matter for organizational performance.
  6. Be able to develop your positive attitude skills.

Figure 2.2 The P-O-L-C Framework

Individuals bring a number of differences to work. They have a variety of personalities, values, and attitudes. When they enter into organizations, their stable or transient characteristics affect how they behave and perform. Moreover, companies hire people with the expectation that they have certain knowledge, skills, abilities, personalities, and values.

Recall that you are learning about the principles of management through the planning-organizing-leading-controlling (P-O-L-C) framework. Employees’ personalities, attitudes, and work behaviors affect how managers approach each P-O-L-C dimension. Here are just a few examples:

  • When conducting environmental scanning during the planning process, a manager’s perceptions color the information that is absorbed and processed.
  • Employee preferences for job design and enrichment (aspects of organizing) may be a function of individuals’ personalities and values.
  • Leading effectively requires an understanding of employees’ personalities, values, and attitudes.
  • Absenteeism can challenge a manager’s ability to control costs and performance (both at the group and individual levels).

Therefore, it is important for managers to understand the individual characteristics that matter for employee and manager behaviors.