Knowing personalities and
situations helps predict
behavior

Employees want to predict the behavior of their bosses. For example, they ask, "Will my bosses be likely to look favorably upon this proposal for change? Will they seriously consider my request for a promotion? When they made comments after my last public presentation, were they being constructive or were they showing displeasure?"

Most commonly, people assess the personalities of others when they make predictions about behavior. If their bosses are dynamic individuals who are looking toward the future, then employees may predict that plans for organizational change will be well received. Or, if bosses constantly look for ways to improve themselves, and feel that employees should be interested in self-growth, employees may take comments about their speeches as constructive criticism.

While personality is an important factor, behavior is better predicted by combining information about people and the social situations in which they find themselves. At times, behavior that might seem inconsistent with our knowledge of people is clarified when the pressures of social situations are integrated into our thinking. This important point can be clarified by an example:

Mary is an executive in an insurance company whose duties include supervising sales agents. She was known as an effective mentor who worked cooperatively with both well-established sales agents and new hires.

One morning, she had long conversations with two employees. Joe had worked in the company for 12 years and his sales had recently declined. Mary discussed reasons for this decline with Joe, and they prepared a plan of action that they felt would lead to improvements. Mary ended the meeting with the comment, "I know that you can do better."

After this meeting, Mary met with Peter, who had been hired six months earlier. Peter had not met his sales quota and was performing worse than Joe. Nevertheless, Mary encouraged him, pointed to successful sales that Peter had closed, and told him that he was an asset to the company. She ended the meeting by saying, "Keep up the good work!"

Mary is clearly treating Joe and Peter differently. But is she being inconsistent?

The answer is "no," if we take the perspective that behavior is best predicted through a knowledge of people's personalities and the social situations in which they find themselves.

Mary has a people-oriented, cooperative personality. She has the goal of improving sales. With Joe, an established agent, she behaves in one way. With Peter, a new hire, she behaves differently. But the entire picture becomes consistent when we keep in mind that Mary is interacting in two different social situations. The people with whom we interact are major aspects of social situations.

In the first situation, Mary needs to find out why Joe's sales are declining. They devise a plan for improvement.

In the second situation, Mary needs to encourage a recent hire. So she focuses on reasons that allow her to offer praise. Her goal of improving sales is best served by adjusting her behavior according to the varying demands she experiences during her workday.

I will continue this discussion next week when I review a model of leadership behavior that is based on people's adjustments to different situations in the workplace.