personality competencies dej - katedra manažerské...

Personality and Competencies of Entrepreneurs

Prague, 30.06.2010

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Institute for Work, Social and Organizational Psychology

Dominika Dej

Institute of Work-, Organizational- and Social Psychology, TU Dresden

30.06.2010 Dominika Dej 2

- Silesian University in Katowice

Dresden University of Technology

Dissertation “Entrepreneurial Success Factors and Health”

- Self- Employment


Theory + (Inter)Action

“Skills cannot be mastered by listening to lectures but by observation of positive models (…) coupled with repeated practice and feedback.”

Richard Hackman

Participation: Leaving the comfort zone

Pillars of the seminar


Today‘s agenda

1. Bill Gates – A story of Success

2. Entrepreneurial personality traits

3. Assess your entrepreneurial potential

4. Active group exercise (teamwork, creativity)

5. Emotions in organizations

6. Leadership


Positive models: Bill Gates – A story of Success


Bill Gates – A story of Success

Your task

1. Read the story (10‘)

2. Work in groups on the following topic (10‘):

Which personal factors and circumstances were crucialfor Bills‘ success?

Which personality traits & competencies lie behind Bill‘ssuccess?

3. Present your results


Entrepreneurs' Personality Traits

Need of achievementDenotes individual’s need to strive hard to attain success.Setting demanding targets for oneself, being proactive, tendency to take immediate responsibility for tasks, plan and control events. Want to receive feedback about their level of performance.

Locus of controlOne aspect of the cognitive style which represents the extension to which individual feels in charge.Perception of control over the environment by one’s action, belief that luck and fate do not really determine what happens.

Risk taking Describes the individual cognitive style with respect to taking risks.Actively seeking risky assignments and having greater propensity to take risks.

Personal initiativeA behaviour syndrome resulting in an individual’s taking an active and self-starting approach to work and going beyond what is formally required in a given job.


Entrepreneurs' Personality Traits

Tolerance of ambiguityDescribes one’s ability to make decision with incomplete information. Making decisions in situations of high uncertainty.

Creativity Describes the tendency towards experimentation, trial and error, lateral thinking.Thinking in non-conventional ways, challenging existing assumptions, flexibilityand adaptability in problem solving.

Need of autonomyRepresents one’s strive to be independent and having control.Avoiding restrictions, rules, procedures and strong need for independence and autonomy.

Self-efficacy Describes optimistic self-beliefs to cope with a variety of difficult demands.Belief that one's actions will produce desired results.


Low need ofachievement and lowdependability

High need of achievement,persistence and dependability (reflects the extend to which one is organised, deliberate, fulfils duties and responsibilities)

Describes individual’s degreeof organisation, persistence,hard work and motivation in pursuit the goalaccomplishment

Conscientiousness

Low need foraffiliation, unforgiving,able to make difficultdecisions

Trusting, forgiving, caring,altruistic, gullible, tendency tohave good interpersonalrelationships

Represents one’sinterpersonal orientation

Agreeableness

Being narrow,conventional, nonanalytical

Being creative, innovative,imaginative, reflective,untraditional

Describes tendency to seeknew experiences, explorationof novel ideas

Openness toExperience

Tendency to spendtime alone, beingreserved, quiet,independent

Tendency to be cheerful, likepeople and big groups, look forexcitement and stimulation

Represents the extent towhich an individual isassertive, dominant,energetic, talkative

Extraversion

Self-confidence,calm, relaxed

Experiencing negative emotions:anxiety, hostility, depression, selfconsciousness, impulsiveness

Represents individualdifferences in emotionalstability

Neuroticism

Low scores on the scale

High scores on the scaleDescriptionDimension

Definitions of the Big-Five personality variables

(FFM; Costa &McCrae, 1992).


Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organizedset of characteristics possesed by a person that uniquely

influences his or her cognitions, motivations and behaviour in various situations. The word „personality

originates from the Greek „persona“, which meansmask…“

Ryckman, 2004


Personality traits vs. competencies

Personality traitA relative stable, consistent, and enduring internal characteristicthat inferred from a pattern of behaviors, attitudes, feelings, and habits in the individual.

CompetenceOne‘s developed repertoire of skills, especially as it is applied to a task or set of task

VandenBos, G.R. (Ed.) (2007). APA Dictionary of Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychology Association.


Entrepreneurial Career Vision Includes formulation of long term goals and preparation of action-implementation plan.

Action OrientationIs understood to be the energy, force, courage and dedication necessary to put into action and make real, all the ideas, proposals, opportunities and entrepreneurial projects.

Decision Taking Means to analyze the different alternatives in order to determine the best path to follow assuming full responsibility of the outcomes.

Management Ability to gather, integrate and manage required resources in order to start, maintain and grow within the organization.

Example of Entrepreneurial Competencies


Entrepreneurial networking Includes establishing, maintaining and taking advantages of interpersonal and institutional relationships in order to achieve entrepreneurial goals.

Empathy Ability to understand others’ emotions, necessities and interests and to integrate them to our own.

Flexibility One’s disposition to change focus in order to follow better fitting options that allow tasks to be well executed.

Example of Entrepreneurial Competencies


Your entrepreneurial potential

1) Personal initiative √

2) Self-efficacy √

3) Internal locus of control

4) Creativity √

5) Need for achievement √

Your task (10’)1) Fill out the questionnaire 2) Calculate the mean score for self-efficacy and personal initiative3) Calculate the sum for creativity and need for achievement

(yes 1, no 0)


Personal initiative

Entrepreneurs' from Poland, Germany & The Netherlands (N= 325)

Mean = 4.00 (SD= .54)

- No gender & country differences- No differences between industry sectors (IT vs. Restaurants)

Norm Population (M= 3.5) (Frese, Kring, Soose & Zempel, 1996)

Your entrepreneurial vs. entrepreneurs’ potential


Self-efficacy

Entrepreneurs' from Poland, Germany & The Netherlands (N= 325)

Mean = 3.13 (SD= .36)

- No gender & country differences- No differences between industry sectors (IT vs. Restaurants)

Norm Population (M= 2.9) (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1989)

Your entrepreneurial vs. entrepreneurs’ potential


Psychological tests - measuring entrepreneurialpotential

- Are they useful and when?

- What are their advantages/ disadvantages?

- What are their alternatives?


Active exercises section

Your task

1. Find your random group (1observer)

2. Build the tower using given materials (20‘)

You are allowed to talkYou can use only:

- Scissors- Paper- Glue

- The tower have to be stable and transportable!

Evaluation:- Size- Stability- Creativity- Presentation present your tower


Evaluation

Who is the winner?

- Did you use a specific strategy or tactic?- Did you prepare the tower building beforehand? (Discussion, role

assignment)- Which kind of preparation would be useful?- Are you satisfied with your result? Why?

- What was useful/ hindering for the performance?- Which emotions prevailed during the work? - How was the decision making strategy?

- Are such exercises useful and should they be used by psychologists?

Active exercises section-Creativity & Teamwork


Are there negative effects of positive emotions on

performance?

Study of Sy, Côte, and Saavedra (2005):

- participants were 189 students (56 teams)- blindfolded tent exercise: Team members were told to build up a tent

quickly and effectively while blindfolded. Only the group leader couldsee the tent. He was instructed to lead the team until the task was finished

Positive mood enhanced group coordination, effort of the team membersBUT inhibited a good task strategy to solve the task

Effects of emotions on performance


Possible reasons for negative effects of positive emotions

• performance on a creativity task depends on the character of the task(Vosburg, 1998)

- optimizing condition (find an optimal solution)

- satisficing condition (generate as much as possible ideasregardless their quality)

• positive emotions signalize security and satisfaction indicatingrequirements for information processing are lower; appliance of simple heuristics and low levels of processing strategies(Hertel et al., 2000)

• positive mood therefore tends to cause fast, simple, and flexibledecisions (Forgas, 1999)



What does a meta analysis indicate?

Baas, DeDreu & Nijstad (2008):

- synthesizes 102 effects regarding the influence of positive emotions

on creativity

- effect size overall revealed a positive correlation between

positive emotions and creativity (r = .15)



Why does good mood enhance performance?

Other reasons for good performance in a positive mood:



Other reasons for good performance in a positive mood:

Baron (1990): positive mood leads to striving for higher goals

Tsai, Chen, & Liu (2007):


*p < 05. **p < .01.


Which charismatic leaders do you know? (also negative ones)

What makes them charismatic?

Class activity:Charismatic leadership examples


Case study: Bill Clinton

"I still believe in a promise calledAmerica and I still believe in a place called Hope.“

Bill Clinton, 1996


Case study: George W. Bush


"If a person's values are destructive, insane, then the more charismatic the leader, theworse off you are."

Jerry Wofford

"Osama bin Laden is obviously delusional, but ... his charisma is probably the mostsignificant factor in why he has so manyfollowers."

Jodi Deluca

Case study: Osama Bin Laden


• What kind of leadership might be benefitial in small and medium sized companies?

Class activity: Leadership & Entrepreneurship


Thanks for your attention!

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