Workplace Personality

Throughout most of the Leadership classes I have taken, personality has always emerged as an important and prominent element that describes, predicts, and explains much of what we learn about leadership, especially relating to the emergence and successfulness of leaders, and also how people interact with each other. Because of this, personality is a useful tool to study in order to improve the outcome of work and coworker satisfaction, which is exactly the reason why Altria has required all new employees (and interns) to take the DISC personality test. The goal is to understand how each employee works optimally in order to increase productivity and job satisfaction. While there are many nuances to the DISC test, the main concept revolves around each person fitting into a letter (or group of letters) category, which describes the environment, relationships, and many other aspects that each person works best with. Not only is this a tool to help employees learn about themselves and how they can improve, but also how they should be working with others who might require different circumstances than their own ideal work setting. So not only did I get my own results, but I also got the results of my team (including my manager) as well as the other interns. I noticed that a couple of interesting conclusions stood out.

Most of marketing tends to be populated Influencers (I’s). These are people who work best in social situations and open environments where they can bounce ideas off of others and build personal relationships. Because of this, the office was set up in a way that is conducive to team collaboration and building relationships. Not everyone was an I, though. I happened to be a Supporter (S). While I am definitely a team player and value relationships, S’s tend to be much more reserved and calm in their approach to work. In a workplace dominated by D’s and I’s, I often felt rushed and out of place with the work style of the rest of the office. For the most part, though, managers tended to be Dominants (D’s) in the office. This supports a lot of the personality theories we have studied so far about the emergence of leaders. It is tough for me to determine how efficient or successful the leaders in the office were, but by and large, the most social and dominant people in the office had the highest-ranking positions. It could be possible that Altria could be missing out on potential leaders and good employees by focusing on certain personality types that they deem best. It also could be the case that the marketing positions attract a certain type of person. Understanding the personalities of people in the workforce is clearly very important for the creation of the right work environment and so far, Altria has done very well from a marketing perspective. Perhaps depending on the job and the environment, certain personalities might do better in leadership positions. Still, there could potentially be a population of employees at Altria that are missing out on opportunities for career progress because they don’t fit the marketing personality mold, and similarly, Altria could be missing out of talent because of an environment that is set up for certain personalities.