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Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes The trait approach has been the subject of considerable criticism. Some theorists argue that
simply identifying traits is not enough; instead, personality is dynamic and not completely
static. Further, trait theorists tended to ignore the influence of situations.

Self-theory

The psychoanalytic, type and trait theories represent the more traditional approach to explaining
the complex human personality. Of the many other theories, the two that have received the most
recent emphasis and that are probably most relevant to the study of organisational behaviour
are the self and social theories of personality.
Self-theory rejects both psychoanalytic and behaviouristic conceptions of human nature as too
mechanistic, portraying people as creatures helplessly buffeted about by internal instincts or
external stimuli.

Carl Rogers is most closely associated with his approach of self-theory. Rogers and his associates
have developed this personality theory that places emphasis on the individual as an initiating,
creating, influential determinant of behaviour within the environmental framework.
Carl Rogers developed his theory of personality through insights gained from his patients in
therapy sessions. Rogers viewed human nature as basically good. If left to develop naturally, he
thought, people would be happy and psychologically healthy.
According to Rogers, we each live in our own subjective reality, which he called the
phenomenological field. It is in this personal, subjective field that we act and think and feel. In
other words, the way we see is the way it is – for us. Gradually, a part of the phenomenological
field becomes differentiated as the self. The self-concept emerges as a result of repeated experiences
involving such terms as "I", "me" and "myself". With the emerging self comes the need for
positive regard. We need such things as warmth, love, acceptance, sympathy and respect from
the people who are significant in our lives. But there are usually strings attached to positive
regard from others.
Conditions of Worth: Our parents do not view us positively regardless of our behaviour. They
set up conditions of worth – conditions on which their positive regard hinges. Conditions of
worth force us to live and act according to someone else's values rather than our own. In our
effort to gain positive regard, we deny our true self by inhibiting some of our behaviour,
denying, distorting some of our perceptions and closing ourselves to parts of our experience. In
doing so, we experience stress and anxiety and our whole self-structure may be threatened.

Unconditional Positive Regard: According to Rogers, a major goal of psychotherapy is to enable
people to open themselves up to experiences and begin to live according to their own values
rather than the values of others in order to gain positive regard. He calls his therapy "person-
centred therapy". Rogers believes that the therapist must give the client unconditional positive
regard, that is, positive regard no matter what the client says, does, has done, or is thinking of
doing. Unconditional positive regard is designed to reduce threat, eliminate conditions of worth,
and bring the person back in tune with his true self.

8.8.4 Personality Characteristics in Organisations

Managers should learn as much as possible about personality in order to understand their
employees. Hundreds of personality characteristics have been identified. We have selected
eight characteristics because of their particular influences on individual behaviour in
organisations. They are:

1. Locus of Control: Some people believe they are masters of their own fate. Other people
see themselves as pawns of fate, believing that what happens to them in their lives is due

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