All About Me: Re-Descovering Personality and Traits

By taking this course I read lots of 'All about me' essay examples. Also I did many different self-assessments to know myself better. I will firstly give an overview on those results. Based on Self-assessment Personality Inventory, my personality type involves introversion, sensing, feeling and judging. I always encourage myself from inward. Most of time, I am seeing the world and obtain information from details instead of seeing a big picture. When I make decisions, I prefer to base on my feelings rather than systematic logic to solve problems. Moreover, I am good at planning things in advance and have my own judges on things. This essay 'All about me' will help me to understand how I interact with the world and solve problems. When I know more about me, I will be able to interact with outside better, because I can stress my strengths and avoid my weakness.

From Self-assessment 20 Questions: “I Am”, when I answered those questions, I focused on emphasizing private self-concept such as my personality, behaviours, and states. I did not show any connections with others, or my membership in a group. I determined my self-monitoring style according to Self-Monitoring Assessment. I am a low self-monitoring person. I am not willing to change my behavior base on another people’s response. In addition, I examined my social styles from BOX 5-2. My dominant social style is amiable. I tend to focus on harmony and relationship oriented. By doing the assessment in Box 6-5, I am able to identify my networking strengths and weaknesses. In my networks, I am a person who has loyalty and people would like to be around, because I am a good listener and respect to other people. I always support other people when they need.

However, I am not a visible person in my networks because I am less willing to participate in many events or professional meetings. In a workplace, there may be some cultural differences. I identified my own cultural preferences by BOX 7-1 on the textbook. In my culture, we prefer to emphasize the interdependence, doing, and achievement. In terms of relating to others, low power distance, particularism and formality are promoted. For communication with others, I prefer high-context communication styles, rapport talk, neutral emotional displays, and thinking while silent. People from different culture have different ways to deal with time. For me, I would like to have a fixed and monochronic time orientation and focus on the present. For determination of truth, people have different ways of creating and using knowledge. I often use inductive reasoning to probe a problem and see things with contradictions. In my culture, we prefer to adapt to the environment, and have a stable development. Work as a part of our life, can affect out psychological and physical health. Based on Defensive Pessimism Questionnaire, I was qualified as a defensive pessimist, who is lack of confidence, and prefer to avoid risks.

After done all these assessments for this sample all about me essay, I have a better understand of myself, so I will use Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) to highlight my personality based on the results from assessments. I will talk about my strengths in my personality, network first.

All About Me: SWOT Analysis

Since I am a low self-monitor, I know what I want to do. I can use my own values and beliefs to make decisions. Hence, I know exactly what I am interested in and know my career preference. Based on the social styles test, I am an amiable person, which means I am a good listener and prefer collaboration. When I am in a workplace, I would like to include everyone, so I can easily earn trust and cooperation from my colleagues. For my social networking skills, people would like to surround me because I show respect to everyone, and I am willing to help other people. I am a loyal and reliable person so I can protect the confidentiality of others. Moreover, I would be able to maintain and develop my social networks based on these skills. In addition, a person also can be affected by cultures. Since in my culture, interdependence is more emphasized than independence, I am more likely to cooperate with other colleagues and I have no problem to do a team work. Moreover, I focus on doing more than being, which means I pay more attention to personal achievements, task accomplishments. So, if I am given a task, I will try my best to complete it well. In our culture, when we communicate with others, we more focus on the context and pay more attention to credibility. So, I would like to generate a harmonious environment when I communicate with other people. Emotional can also affect my performance in a workplace. I am defensive pessimism, so I would like to take any potential risks into account, pay more attention to details, which can help me have better performance in my team.

However, there are some weaknesses in my personality and social networking skills as well. Since I am an amiable person, I would like to avoid making big decisions, or express my opinions directly, which means I am too dependent and make decisions slowly. For my network skills, I am not a visible person. I do not participate in events or professional meetings often. So it is hard for me to extend my social networking. From culture preference analysis, I found our culture is more like ascription-based cultures. In other words, people earn their status by social connections, family. Because I am not good at extending my social networking, I may not have a social connection that can help me to improve my status. In terms of communication with others, we prefer high-context communication styles. Communications is less direct, so it will take more time to communicate. In a workplace, emotional is also a key factor. I found I am a defensive pessimist. I can become anxious when I feel stressful. I may also miss some opportunities because I always try to avoid risks.

Although I have some weaknesses, I still have many opportunities to make myself better. I am an amiable person, so I should try to show initiative and make decisions independently. Personality is hard to change for a person, but people can change their networks by learning new skills. I can develop my network by face-to-face or online based on my needs. I can list what I would like to gain from my network and then generate a systematic plan to achieve them. For example, I can try to take part in more events that are related to my future career. In this way, I would be able to know more people. Although there are some culture differences between Western and Eastern, I have Eastern culture background and I receive my post-secondary education in Canada. So, I can understand both cultures, and I have ability to work in a multicultural environment. Although I am a defensive pessimist, if I can control my stress and anxiety, I can perform better than other people because I have ability to pay attention to details.

There are also some threats for me, because we know it is not an easy thing for people to change their personality. Since I cannot make decisions independently, it is hard for me to get a position in higher level if I do not make any change. In a social networking, I would not like to reach out people that are outside my organizational groups. So, if I do not reach out other people actively, I may lose some opportunities such as job opportunities. I also have threats due to the culture preferences. Since our culture is ascription-based, people would like to evaluate others’ value based on their age, family or social connections. I cannot change my age or my family. I will not have any advantages if I compete with someone older than me or someone have better family background. Another threat is due to the culture difference. We prefer thinking with silent, so we always think carefully before speaking up. However, in Western cultures, people always think out loud. They would like to share their ideas with others no matter whether it is complete. If I would like to work in a Canadian company, I may be viewed as a non-talkative person, not being interested in the topic.

One’s personality and behavior can be affected by family and culture. For example, a research showed that birth order can affect personality traits. They found middle child tend to not share ideas openly and they try to create a peaceful and harmonious environment. I am a middle child in my family. In the personality test, I am an introvert person. In the social style test, I am an amiable person who is harmony focused and acceptance driven. When I did the work-related cultural preferences test, it shows a strong evidence that culture can affect the way people thinking and doing. Since I come from China, Eastern culture influence me a lot. For example, I prefer thinking while silent because my parents and teachers told me you should have a deep thinking and think carefully before you say it. Now, I am studying in a Western cultural environment. Some of my ways of thinking may change. For example, I tend to use inductive reasoning to determine what is the truth. In the textbook, inductive reasoning was the method that is often used by North American. East Asian prefer to use deductive reasoning. As I mentioned before, I am a defensive pessimist. Both culture and family contribute to this. In our culture, we prefer to focus on a personal achievement such as grades of a test because we emphasize doing rather than being. When I was a child, my parents cared about my grades and performance in school, which made me stressful. I was always thinking what would happen if I did not do well in a test. In addition, a study showed that the family interactions can affect the stress level. Therefore, family and culture can contribute a large part to a person’s personality and behaviors.

All the assessments that we done aim to emphasize the importance of self-awareness and help us to know more about ourselves. When we have self-awareness, we would be able to build our own brand, taking ourselves as our own CEO. Self-concept can be affected by many factors such as social influence and cultural influence. For me, my self-concept can be affected by my family and cultures significantly. For example, when I completed the work-related culture preference test, most of my decisions were influenced by the Asian cultures. I have interdependent self-concept. I prefer to be connected with others and I feel uncomfortable when I make decisions independently. I am amiable and tend to maintain harmony. Another important influence factor is family. I am trustworthy and loyal because my parents always tell me that loyalty and trust are the most important personality to interact with the world. Self-concept can determine how we interact with people, how we make decisions, how we view things. I should have the ability to improve my self-concept, so that I can enhance my effectiveness in managerial and professional role.

In a conclusion, it's all about me essay. I found out that family and culture are important for people personality and behaviors. In a workplace, emotional is also important because it can affect performance. Based on all those assessments, I am an introvert, sensing, feeling and judging person. For my social networking, my loyalty and credibility can help me to build and maintain a social network. My work-related culture preference is major contributed from Eastern cultures and mixed with some Western cultures. Moreover, I am a defensive pessimist. From all these results, I have better understand of myself, and I would be able to develop self-awareness. I know what my strengths are and what I need to improve in my future career.

References

• Alexandre, A., Martin, M., Wei, L., Tim, W. & Reed, S. (2006). Cultural influences on knowledge sharing through online communities of practice. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED492420.pdf
• Caproni, P. (2012). Management Skills for Everyday Life (3rd edition). Prentice Hall.
• Kwalombota, M. (n.d.). Family Influences on the Development of a Child's Behavior. URJHS. Retrieved from: https://www.kon.org/urc/v5/mahalihali.html
• Rome, N. (2002). Personality Traits Linked To Birth Order. CBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/personality-traits-linked-to-birth-order/