Big Five Personality Traits
The purpose of this report is to provide brief information about the details of the Prime Minister of the country New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. The report details information about the personality traits of the Prime Minister of New Zealand along with the relation of her nature to the big five-personality theory. The report also evaluates the impact of diversity on the approach of the leader to initiate a decision in the country. Further, more details about the report are discussed below:
Organizational behavior is the study of nature of people present in a particular organization and their ability to respond and accept changes present at workplace. Personality of a person plays the lead role both individual and occupational positions. Irrespective of the place, position or industry behaviour plays a significant role in influencing people and initiating activities as well. The country New Zealand is marked under top organizations that are well qualified in education, health, economic freedom and quality of life. In response to the national features of the country Jacinda Ardern is chosen for the discussion of the personality traits of the leader of New Zealand. Jacinda kate Laurell Ardern is a famous politician of New Zealand who is the 40th Prime Minister of the country with effect from 26th October 2017. Jacinda also acts as the leader of Labor Party from 1 August 2017. Jacinda Ardern was born in New Zealand (Hamilton) itself on 26th July 1980. She became the youngest Prime Minister in the past 150 years history of the country (Ross, Fountaine, and Comrie 2015). After completion of graduation from University of Waikato in the year 2001, Jacinda initiated her career as researcher in the office of Prime Minister Helen Clark. Afterwards, she also worked as a policy advisor to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in UK. Further, in the year 2008, Jacinda was chosen as the President of International Union of Socialist Youth. In the current era, Jacinda is working well in the country; she defines herself as a social democrat as well as a progressive leader of the country. Ardern also became second elected head of government worldwide to become a parent while holding the office services (Bakir, et. al., 2015).
As explained above that personality plays a lead role in personal as well as organizational life of an individual. Personality of an individual can be easily understood using the big five personality traits. Big five traits of personality includes five dominant traits that describes the personality of an individual. Every person falls in one of such category that explains their behaviour and personality. This model is also known as five factor model that talks about five factors such as extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and Neuroticism. In the current environment, the human resource management teams in an organization usually make use of this framework to hire the people (Erdman 2018). This model is helpful in understanding the personality of an individual and defining them a particular role or job that they can successfully fulfil. More explanation about these five personality traits are discussed below:
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension
Openness: Openness is appreciation for the emotion, art, curiosity, unusual opinions, adventure and range of experience. This personality trait segregates imaginative population from conventional population (Keyes, et. al., 2015).
Extraversion: Extraversion emphasizes on the level of ease that a person get while interacting to other people. Extraverts gains strong and positive energy by communicating with other people while, introvert people gain energy by spending more time with themselves only. Main traits of extraverts are such talkative, energetic and assertive people who can be clearly differentiated from a group of people.
Conscientiousness: Conscientiousness refers to the degree to which people show a reliable and constant behaviour at workplace. People that hold high degree of this factor tend to be more prompt and reliable. Major traits under this phase are being thorough, methodical and organized.
Agreeableness: People that hold such personality trait are more cooperative, friendly and compassionate towards other people. It is about the behaviour of a person towards others while holding communication (McLaren 2018).
Neuroticism: It is commonly known as emotional stability, that is related to the level of negative emotions and emotional stability as well.
Hofstede’s cultural dimension is a framework that used to evaluate the cross cultural communication. This model was introduced by Greet Hofstede that explains about the impact of various culture aspects on the value of the people related to it. In the current environment, every business plans to expand their activities in the international countries. Resulting in which, it is very important to understand the culture and diversity of foreign nations. Further, various aspects of this framework are discussed below:
Power Distance: Under Hofstede’s framework, power distance refers to the quantification of the inequality that is present in a society and accepted by the population irrespective of having power (Ross 2018).
Individualism: individualism refers to the extent to which people in the society tend to have closed knit group or loosely knit group with their immediate and extending families.
Masculinity: it refers to the preference in the society for various rewards like heroism, assertiveness and material rewards and success. In this case, the society that large is more competitive (Usunier, van Herk, and Lee 2017).
Uncertainty Avoidance: This dimension explains the degree to which people in the society feel uncomfortable about the future upcoming events. This index explains the level of anxiety that people feel when they face an unknown situation.
Short Term Orientation: It refers to the rules of society on the basis of which people create a connection between the past and future actions (Coates 2015).
Personality Traits of Jacinda Ardern
People in New Zealand who work for political ministry of the country are inspected by the population of the country to determine if those people have the actual potential traits to effectively initiate leadership activities. Analysing how the personality trait of a leader is connected to the performance in the political office might also provide an examination of theories about how the nature of the person is related to social effectiveness in real life. As discussed in the above stanza, there are some personality traits that a political leader must have so as to lead the country (Carter, Gunasekara, and Blakely 2018). So, the personality traits of Jacinda Ardern according to Big 5 Personality Traits Theory are discussed below:
Extraversion: It is regarded as an important dimension in this model as it explains about the people who are more talkative and sociable. People having such trait likes interacting to other people and do not hesitate in expressing their thoughts as well. For people having such traits, it is easy for other people also to understand them and communicate properly. Jacinda Ardern has a high score in this case, as she is a social democrat. Ardern is an extrovert in expressing her opinion for what she believes. She also targeted to put forward the issues like same sex marriage, decriminalization of cannabis, homelessness in New Zealand etc. So, looking at her ability to lead, leader Phil Goff promoted her to front bench and called her as the spokesperson of labor Youth Affairs. After becoming the leader of labor party along with Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda has started outlining major social issues and fighting for it as well. Thus, it should be noted that the actions initiated by Jacinda clearly explains her extrovert abilities to become an active political leader (Kelsey 2015).
Agreeableness: Agreeableness is an aspect that explains the measure of how comfortable people are with each other. Such personality trait of an individual can be seen by looking at their behaviour with others. Jacinda holds medium level agreeableness in her behaviour as she is very empathetic to people. She believes that her government is very strong, focused for population and country and at the same time empathetic as well. By understanding the feelings of people of the country, she is constantly trying to eliminate child poverty and change the standard of living for people as well. Her understanding ability works well and helps her in successfully leading the country as well (Thayer, and Kuzawa 2015).
Impact of Diversity on Decision-making
Openness: This personality trait talks about imaginativeness, cooperativeness and level of creativity of an individual. More of openness helps people in finding out the best innovation solution. Jacinda has a personality that is very high in the field of openness as the PM is always willing to initiate new and innovative ways to decrease the social issues affected with the country. Ardern fought for various social issues in her political career that shows her openness towards the society. Like, she prepared a bill for the gay couple adoption rights in response to which she is tried help people adopt the same. The openness trait of Jacinda helps her to solve various social problems present in New Zealand with an innovative approach (Lees-Marshment 2018).
Conscientiousness: This aspect refers to personality traits of people that talk about their consciousness to consider particular circumstances available while making decisions. As discussed in the above stanzas, Ardern uses social democratic as well as progressive leadership style that helps her in making decision while considering all the available circumstances. The leadership approach of Jacinda focuses on her vision, values and implementation of changes in the society (Barrett 2018). In addition, Jacinda has visualized a future position for New Zealand in upcoming years. She wants to support that goal by the values of stewardship, caring, inclusion, and equality. She is the kind of person who is very motivated by her beliefs about the society and she wants to do the same as well. The people of New Zealand have full faith on the activities of their Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that motivates her to the maximum level to do well for the organization. Thus, it should be noted that Jacinda has a great leadership potential to work for the betterment of the country (Lees-Marshment, et. al., 2018).
Neuroticism: People having Neuroticism tend to attract negative emotions easily. Negative emotion are depression, anxiety, aggression etc. This personality trait talks about the emotional stability of a person and being a Prime Minister of the country, it is very important for them to be emotionally stable and take actions according to the given situated without getting influenced. Relating it to the actions of Jacinda Ardern, it should be noted that she handles every situation very well in the country. Jacinda communicates with emotional warmth and with a smile on her face that attracts people to interact with her (Mills, Berti, and Rupar 2018). One of the most significant examples of neuroticism trait in Jacinda is that she announced her pregnancy news publically to the people of New Zealand. This revolutionary declaration was positively approached by all that gave her positivity to work while expecting a baby. After giving birth to baby, Jacinda continued to work after taking leaves only for six weeks only. This action of her shows that she is a very strong and emotionally stable person who can easily handle both professional and personal lives separately. She became an inspirational leader for most of people of the country that helped her gain support of people in taking decision for the people of the country (Gillies, Edwards, and Horley 2018).
Many cultural differences can be analysed that affects the decision making ability of the leader of a country. Jacinda Ardern also faced some cultures aspects that affected her actions in both positive and negative way. These dimensions of culture have impact on attitude, motivation, international perception and satisfaction level as well. Further, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension clearly explains the cultural factors present in New Zealand that affects the leadership ability of Jacinda Ardern (Minkov 2018). These dimensions and its impact is discussed below:
Power Distance
Power Distance is the aspect that evaluates that people in a particular society are not treated equally. It explains the difference in culture’s attitude towards such inequalities present in the environment. New Zealand has a very high rate of inequality that explains that there is very high gap between the poor and rich. People who share the power on get the right to make decisions otherwise all people have to obey to their decisions. Resulting in which, power distance in the country is low (22) (Hofstede Insights 2018). The problem of child poverty in the country is increasing day by day from past 30 years that is somehow increasing the difference between superior and subordinates. Such inequality present in New Zealand has been endorsed by government and leaders along with the people of the country. Pacific and Maori people are highly affected with the problem of inequality in the society (Elder 2018).
Relating the aspect of power distance to the political decision making process of Jacinda Ardern, it should be noted that it is one of the most prominent topic that is focus by the PM of the country. The wealthy population of the country highly influence the politicians through their bribe and donations. The democracy ideals are abused due to such biased activities present in the environment that largely affect the political activities of other politicians as well. Jacinda has now aimed to motivate the policymakers to focus on the bottom line population (40%) of the country as well. Taxes should be waived and benefits should be given to people so as to redistribute the income in an appropriate way. Looking forward to this issue Jacinda faces difficulties in managing all the people of the country together (Macdonald 2018).
Individualism Vs Collectivism
This aspect of Hofsted Framework addresses the issue of interdependence of people on each other. There is high degree of score (79) in this case that states that New Zealand has an individualistic culture. This means that people present in this country are likely to work for themselves than to depend on other people for their subsistence living. People of this country only want to take care of their immediate family members only. Nevertheless, this aspect somehow support the individuals to growth their potential but it can also exploit the wealth present in the nation. This aspect is responsible for increasing inequality and diversity in the country. Jacinda’s ability are moderately affected with this aspect of culture. The PM of the country needs to develop policies that does not provide benefit to the cluster of people but to help to individuals only. So, this aspect helps the government to make laws for people who are more self-reliant (Trimble 2017).
Masculinity Vs Femininity
In this type of dimension, greater score of masculinity shows that the people of the country are more focussed towards competition, success, monetary incentives and growth. In a masculine society, females are considered as competitive and assertive but less than men. The score of 58 in tthis case explains the country is slightly more inclined towards masculine society. However, the biggest irony is that people having masculine culture with them have opted a female as their Prime Minister of the country. This score shows that there is diversity present in the environment that makes women feel backward. Thus, this aspect is a major concern for the leader of the country as she wants to reduce the gap between and men and women and provide equal opportunities to both of them. In regards to which, she aspires to provide better opportunities to female at work. Similar laws have been implemented to promote women (Minkov, et. al., 2017).
Uncertainty Avoidance Index
This aspect of the Hofstede dimension explains the ways in which people can handle complex situations in an effective manner. It explains the level to which people feel insecure with the upcoming unknown situations. It also indicates the rationale for people to accept new and innovative ideas. The people of New Zealand do not have a futuristic approach due to which they do not take interest in the policies implemented by Jacinda. People only get attracted towards them when they see benefit coming out of it (Amlinger-Chatterjee, et. al., 2018).
Long Term Orientation Vs Short Term Orientation
This dimension of Hofstede’s framework talks about the linkage between the past with future and present actions. A low grade score in this case explain that people understand, respect and fulfil the traditions as well and vice versa. In the country New Zealand the score is 33 that explains that people in the country are highly concerned about their traditions, culture and beliefs. The people of the country respect their traditions and are focussed on fast outcomes of the event. This aspect also affects the decision making ability of Jacinda and encourages her to adopt the traditional values in every decision that she takes. If the people of the country will see a glimpse of the traditions in the policies implemented by the government then they will certainly follow it considering the quick and easy result of the process. The score of 33 explains that the country is normative in nature. Implementation of policies created of Jacinda helps her in successfully completing short term as well as long term objectives of the country (Obi, Leggett, and Harris 2017).
Thus, from the above analysis, it can be stated that the cultural differences affects the actions of Jacinda in both positive and negative ways. The culture of New Zealand in diverse that makes it difficult for the PM to implement policies considering interest of all the people of the country.
Conclusion
From the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that Jacinda Ardern is a great leader opted by the people of New Zealand. She is making major efforts and trying hard to eliminate differences present in the society and help people live a great life. She is trying hard to develop the economic, social and political environment of the country. Further, the report successfully explains the big five personality traits of Jacinda along with impact of cultural differences in the decision making approach of the leader. It also evaluates the types of leadership traits that a leader must have to sustain their activities in the society. Lastly, New Zealand is diversified country and Jacinda is trying her best to implement policies according to the cultural differences. Further, there are a few recommendations given to the leaders of the country. These recommendations are discussed below:
It is recommended to Jacinda that she should develop her personality according to the available needs of the people of New Zealand. Jacinda Ardern is leading the country in most positive ways that she can, however still there is need of improvement. It is important that the decision implemented by Jacinda should target the right type of people present in the society and aim to eliminate the gaps as well. She should also formulate policies to deal with the issue of diversity in the society.
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