Question

Gloria and Lakeisha are co-workers who are assigned to work on a project together. Lakeisha is very organized and wants them to do really well on this project. To help them get started, Lakeisha took some initiative and prepared a list of to-do items along with due dates. She even color-coded the list to indicate which partner will do each item and sends an email to Gloria with the to-do list. Lakeisha wants her partner to know that she’s serious about their success.

Gloria is happy her teammate has shown initiative but is surprised by Lakeisha’s to-do list and feels a bit uncomfortable because she feels like Lakeisha is micromanaging her. Gloria wants to do her part on the project but is feeling anxious because she doesn’t know where she fits in, and it is making her worried about working on this project. She wonders how she can succeed on this project if Lakeisha is already the leader. When working for a previous employer, Gloria felt anxious about her ability to successfully complete a project and attempted to communicate her feelings with a co-worker; however, her co-worker didn’t seem to understand Gloria’s concerns and said that she should just ignore her feelings and get the work done.

As Gloria ponders having a conversation with Lakeisha, she starts to feel overwhelmed and thinks it might just be easier to be removed from the project. Using your problem solving and self and social awareness skills and what you have learned about personality traits and emotions, answer the questions below to help Gloria calm her anxiety and find a solution to her problem:

1. From Chapter 3 in the webtext, what did you learn about the big 5 personality traits?

2. Consider Gloria and Lakeisha’s different approaches to the project. On which one of the Big 5 personality traits do they most differ? How do they differ?

3. Chapter 6 in the webtext focused on emotions. Using what you learned, give advice to Gloria on how she can identify and regulate her own emotions so that she can stick with this project, and be successful.

4. If you were in this situation, how confident are you that you could successfully resolve a workplace conflict like the one that Gloria faced? What past experiences or knowledge influence your answer

Answer 1

Answer1. The Big 5 personality traits are described in a theory of personality. The five traits are as follows:-

• Openness- it is the readiness of person to environmental changes. A person high on this is ready to accept change, enthusiastic about new environment , excited to work with new people , does not resist change , is open to new experiences.
• Conscientiousness- people high on this are organized, methodic, and thorough. They are reliable.
• Extraversion- A person high on this is very friendly and social. They have a lot of friends and love to meet new people. Opposite of this trait is introversion.
• Agreeableness- people high on this are friendly, cooperative, and compassionate.They are empathetic and helping.
• Neuroticism- it indicates emotional stability. People high on this trait include being emotional unstable , with negative emotions, moody and tensed.
  

Answer 2. Both of them have contrast personality . The most different trait is CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.
Gloria is not organised at all. She feels uncomfortable when her co worker makes a plan and assigns tasks that are to be done by each of them. She is not methodical and thorough . Hence she is low on this trait. Whereas Lakeisha scores high on this aspect because she is very organised and methodical. She even highlights the main tasks to be done and is very excited about the project.

Answer 3. Gloria lacks emotional intelligence and needs to regulate her emotions. She needs to do the following three things :-

1. She has to be self aware about her own emotions both negative and positive.

2. She needs to learn about others emotions as well.
3. She needs to regulate her own emotions according to the situation.

In order to regulate her emotions she can starts writing a journal in which she can share her true feelings each day after work. She can also use techniques like mindfulness and meditation to be more calm and composed.

Answer 4. If I were in this situation , I would have talked to Gloria. The main main would be to understand what her real problem is and help her deal with those problems effectively so that she could work and give her best performance. Employees happiness and positive mental health is the key to success of a company. Every employee is different and it is very important to understand each ones individual differences.