Is Your Personality Impacting on Your Work Performance?
Personality is a key driver of mood and emotion at work. Learn how your personality traits affect your work performance and wellbeing.
Personality is a key driver a person's workplace mood and emotions
Researchers who have extensively studied how people behave in workplaces generally emphasize that personalities do not change.
"Stability in personality matters for organisations because it helps us understand people's behavior in many work-related domains, including employee performance, social networks, employee withdrawal, and employee retention," according to an Academy of Management Annals article.
Workplace-related research says the "Big Five" personality traits—neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness—are "basic dispositions that ... endure through adulthood. Refer to my article that provides more information on the "Big Five."
*Personality Drivers and Consequences of Workplace Mood* The following study examined predictors and outcomes of individual mood variability in the workplace.
D uring a 3‐month weekly study, they collected data on personality (extraversion and neuroticism), positive and negative workplace mood, and job performance from 357 participants.
The study revealed a positive relationship between neuroticism and individual variability in negative mood, which in turn predicted individual variability in performance.
Results contribute to the understanding differences in individual mood variability, and they suggest expanding the mood – performance relationship from a static perspective to an individual dispersion perspective.
From a practical point of view, their results identify neuroticism as a potential risk factor for unstable performance, but they also give room for fostering predictable performance.
*Key Take-outs * Individuals with higher neuroticism may be prone to fluctuations in negative mood at work and indirectly to inconsistent performance – this highlights the necessity of personality assessment in both personnel selection and development.
Interventions aimed at stabilizing mood can be an effective lever for stabilizing work performance. You read more of interventions at my article on using Acceptance Commitment Therapy
[
< Older Post
](/what-is-your-emotional-tolerance-window) [
Newer Post >
](/what-are-your-emotional-core-needs)
[
Written by Franco Greco
Clinical & Counselling Psychologist • Internationally Accredited Schema Therapist • Gottman-trained. Melbourne-based, with in-person and Telehealth sessions.
If this resonates, take the next step
Articles inform — therapy transforms. A free 15-minute call is the simplest way to explore whether Franco's approach fits your needs.