Great leaders have high levels of self awareness. One element of self awareness is a good understanding of how human beings differ in terms of personality. The big 5 personality traits can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN.
OCEAN
Trait descriptions and impact on job performance.
- Openness, inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious; Openness is positively related to proactivity at the individual and the organizational levels and is negatively related to team and organizational proficiency.
- Conscientiousness, efficient/organised vs. easy-going/careless; Conscientiousness is positively related to all forms of work role performance.
- Extroversion, outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved; Extraversion is negatively related to individual task proficiency.
- Agreeableness, friendly/compassionate vs. challenging/detached; Agreeableness is negatively related to individual task proactivity.
- Neuroticism sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident; Neuroticism is negatively related to all forms of work role performance.
If you want to get a quick analysis of your own levels on each of these traits, Cambridge University provide a 3 minute test: Mini-IPIP Big 5 Personality Test
Do you want to know what I am?
Conor’s Big 5 Personality Traits
Here are my results from the Cambridge University test taken 2 December 2019.
