Executive Summary
The emotional display rules have been known to affect the performance of employees at the workplace. For instance, anger and happiness may trigger mixed feelings and responses among workers leading to significant effects at the workplace. Moreover, job satisfaction and personality traits are directly proportional to each other. Employees who feel satisfied at the workplace ought to have fulfilled emotions that have been triggered by positive personality responses. It is also inevitable to experience conflicts within groups in an organization. However, such conflicts should be resolved promptly because they negatively affect the productivity of employees. Moreover, effective workplace strategies should be adopted to optimize the performance of employees.
Emotion display rules at work in the global service economy
This empirical study by Grandey et al (2010) illustrates how cultural, occupational, and relational expectations are affected by emotional display rules. The two most important emotional parameters that have been explored by the authors are happiness and anger. To expound on how the two emotion display rules affect workplace performance, the study was carried out among four distinct cultures. The participants in the survey were drawn from supervisors, coworkers as well as customers. From the study, it was found out that emotion is an integral factor that significantly affects performance at work because coworkers can elicit both anger and happiness among each other. The same can be transferred to team leaders or supervisors. However, the authors note that such flow of emotion should not be allowed to infiltrate customers although the latter can easily suppress the negative effects of emotion.
On the other hand, coworkers are highly encouraged to express happiness to boost their work performance. Emotion display rules are also affected by cultural dimensions. These include collectivism and power distance. However, the effects are not the same between customers and employees. For instance, various cultures demonstrate fairly consistent emotion display rules among customers compared to employees. This implies that emotion has remarkable impacts on the overall performance of employees at places of work. Besides, culture is an instigating factor among certain civilizations when it comes to job satisfaction and workplace performance among employees.
Relationship of personality traits and counterproductive work behaviors
A path analysis method was used to assess a model on the effect of individual character traits on productivity at work and general job satisfaction. In particular, Mount, Ilies, and Johnson (2006) are quite categorical that indirect relationships and counterproductive work behaviors (CPBs) play a tangible role in the overall job satisfaction level among workers. To obtain the correlation between the two parameters, the empirical research study utilized a base sample of 141 participants. The respondents were drawn from employees who deal directly with customers. Besides, the self CPBs and boss-rated hypothesized models were used before carrying out the survey. From the survey results, it was found out that interpersonal counterproductive work behavior (CPB-I) was directly proportional to agreeableness. Besides, the organizational counterproductive work behaviors (CPB-O) had a direct relationship with conscientiousness. On the same note, both CPB-O and CPB-I were found to be directly proportional to the level of job satisfaction at the workplace.
The role of group personality composition in the emergence of task and relationship conflict within groups
Groups in an organization often experience bouts of conflicts at one time or another. It is a vice that negatively impacts the overall performance of individual groups. Although various models have been proposed in the past research studies on how conflicts can be resolved in regards to personality differences, the part played by personality or character traits of individuals in the initiation of conflicts has not been adequately addressed. Marc (2009) notes that it is highly likely that group-level phenomenon is a critical factor in the emergence of any kind of conflict at the workplace. Therefore, a dyadic analysis or aggregation of character traits to the group may be required to fully evaluate the emergence of conflict. The author proposes that relationship conflict and task conflict may individually or mutually be influenced by the Big Five personality traits.
A longitudinal analysis of the association between emotion regulation, job satisfaction, and intentions to quit
The desire to quit, job satisfaction at the workplace, and the public display of emotion by individuals in groups were assessed in this longitudinal empirical analysis. From the hypothesized (dissonance) model used in the study, the desire to quit is usually increased while job satisfaction decreases whenever unpleasant emotions are suppressed at the place of work. Also, Cote and Laura (2002) proposed a social interaction model which estimates that when pleasant emotions are intense at the workplace, it is highly likely that individual employees and even teams will experience an improved level of job satisfaction. The study concludes that either subjective or objective impacts may be generated at the workplace.
Personal effectiveness at work
I am a relatively good listener when being addressed by a colleague or my senior at the workplace. Although it is strength on one side, overdoing it has made me be branded as a very submissive worker who finds it hard to reject unworthy offers. I usually stop everything that I am doing and then fully concentrate on the communication between me and the others. By so doing, my fellow workmates have complimented me several times by reiterating that I value, dignify and also respect them. According to my opinion, the ability to give attention to others by keenly listening and giving responses wherever necessary has been my strength in creating the right impression that anyone can desire. Besides, being attentive to my fellow employees as well as the senior officers has undoubtedly been a positive attribute since it is a strength that cannot be misinterpreted or misunderstood by anybody. Overall, people perceive me as a good communicator although I do not like talking a lot (Hooijberg, Lane & Diverse, 2010).
However, when I overdo this strength, it turns out to be a weakness in self-presentation. For instance, I sometimes give too much attention to others until I delay performing an important task which may be time-restricted. As I result, some co-workers perceive me as a very flexible person. This is my major weakness bearing in mind that I often find it cumbersome to say ‘no’ to demands from my colleagues. The reason why I often fail to self-present my feelings is that I fear being perceived as a weak character or somebody who does not measure up to the expected standards. I better maintain a submissive character than face the reality of being criticized.
Strategies for developing workplace effectiveness
Although I have generally been a productive worker in the workplace, there is a need to develop other strategies that can boost the performance of workers. For instance, training programs that address the significance of ethics should be enhanced. Both the management team and other subordinate employees at the workplace should be able to appreciate why prejudice, sexual harassment, and discrimination should not be advanced at the workplace. Training programs should also focus more on the desired organizational culture based on principled behaviors, diversity benefit of workers as well as workplace values (Hooijberg, Lane & Diverse, 2010).
Effective communication at the place of work is an integral requirement that cannot be ignored if workplace effectiveness is to be developed. In this regard, it is pertinent to mention that communication is an essential tool in an organization because it ensures that personal relationships among individual workers and various groups are positively maintained. Besides, effective communication enhances the value of respect and dignity (Hooijberg, Lane & Diverse, 2010). These two attributes are powerful ingredients in boosting the effectiveness and performance of employees in an organization. Hence, it is imperative to assert that an organization and its employees are well guarded by the quality of communication that takes place daily. I also suppose that effective communication will indeed enable me to express my true and justified feelings and opinions at the place of work. In essence, decision-making processes or policy changes that may require input from employees cannot be fully effective if the flow of communication is poor.
Communication can be verbal or non-verbal. For instance, facial expressions, gestures, and body postures can be regarded as actual communication existing between two individuals without actually talking. Non-verbal communication can be more genuine and extremely powerful than actual talking when forging effective workplace cooperation among employees both at the management and subordinate levels (Hooijberg, Lane & Diverse, 2010).
References
Cote, S., & Laura, M. M. (2002). A longitudinal analysis of the association between emotion regulation, job satisfaction, and intentions to quit. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(8), 947-962.
Grandey, A., Rafaeli, A., Ravid, S., Wirtz, J., & Steiner, D. D. (2010). Emotion display rules at work in the global service economy: The special case of the customer. Journal of Service Management, 21(3), 388-412.
Hooijberg, R., Lane, N. & Diverse, A. (2010). Leader effectiveness and integrity: wishful thinking? International Journal of Organizational Analysis 18(1), 59-75.
Marc, H. A. (2009). The role of group personality composition in the emergence of task and relationship conflict within groups. Journal of Management and Organization, 15(1), 82-96.
Mount, M., Ilies, R., & Johnson, E. (2006). Relationship of personality traits and counterproductive work behaviors: The mediating effects of job satisfaction. Personnel Psychology, 59(3), 591-622.