The relation characteristics of personality of managers working in Iran University of Medical Sciences with success and desirable job.

BACKGROUND: Several studies suggest the existence of an effective relationship between individuals'characteristics and important factors such as occupational and organizational performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and etc. This study was designed based on the dimensions of personality (introversion /extroversion) of managers of Iran University of Medical Sciences at three levels (executive, middle and senior) with their career success rate.
METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study, whose population was all managers of Iran University of Medical Sciences. To collect data, two valid and reliable questionnaires were used. The first questionnaire assessed personality characteristics of each director, and the second measured occupational success. Related tests such as Pearson correlation test and independent comparison (independent t-test) at a significance level of 0.05 were used for data analysis.
RESULTS: Findings revealed no significant relationship between variables of introversion and extroversion and occupational success among the senior managers, (p> 0.05). However, there was a direct but incomplete relationship between introversion and extroversion, which correlated with job success among middle and executives managers.
CONCLUSION: It seems that in all three levels of managers, if the managers communicated more with employees and if the subject of communication was more of executive nature, the correlation rate would increase between extroversion and introversion with job success variables. Therefore, it is suggested to give attention to organizational interaction and communication, and contingency variables such as organization condition, structure, formality and complexity.

Introduction

Characteristic is a set of emotional and behavioral traits that an individual possess. In other words, the individual adjusts his interactions with others and regulates his social environment through characteristic adaptations (1). Mc Shin & Glino considered the characteristic as relatively stable patterns of behavior and consistent internal states that show a person's behavioral tendencies (2). Given these definitions, it may be gathered that individuals’ differences are rooted in their characters and since they keep their personality in the organizations, employees’ personality can be a source of growth, innovation and progress or conflict, corporate failures and other inevitable problems (3).

The introversion/extroversion terms were first used by Jung. According to him, an extrovert is someone who is interested in the outside world, concrete things and people while an introvert is attached to inside thoughts and feelings. In terms of character, extroverts are cordial, genial and social people, but introverts are misanthrope, conservative and daydreamer (4). However, there are several objections to Jung’s theory; for example, the level of extroversion and introversion is not clear enough to allow them to be completely distinct from each other, and people may have some parts of each of these psychological dimensions. Moreover, extroversion and introversion form three dimensions, each of which having separate dimensions such as: "love to think" versus "love to act", "love to be in solitude" against "public interest" and "willingness to endure hardship in life"versus"tend to be satisfied with the quo status" (5).

Meanwhile, several studies suggest the existence of an effective relationship between individuals’characteristics and important factors such as occupational and organizational performance, citizenship or anti- citizenship organizational behavior, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and etc (6-7).On the other hand, management experts argue that people in organizations have one of the directors or the followers position. If they are considered as directors, their personal characteristics will particularly impact the organization’s success and employees’ motivation (8). Management is one of the most important discussion topics in each organization and personality characteristics have a very important role in success of organizations (9). This study was based on the dimensions of personality (introversion /extroversion) of managers working at three executive, middle and senior-levels in Iran University of Medical Sciences and their career success rate.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the current state of personality characteristics of managers (high / middle / base) with respect to introversion/ extroversion and to identify aspects of the relationship between these characteristics and occupational success among these managers in Iran University of Medical Sciences in order to determine the role of personality characteristics in executives’ success.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional descriptive study, whose population was all managers of Iran University of Medical Sciences (N= 512). The managers who participated in this study were senior managers (N= 23), middle managers (N=108) and executive managers (N= 381).

Operational Managers (Supervisors): For monitoring purposes, operations managers often have to travel and design detailed and short-term plans. Executives spend a little time on planning, writing reports, reading, commenting and reviewing (10). Middle Managers: Middle managers report directly to the top management level. They manage supervisors and act as a link between senior and operational managers. Middle managers analyze data, prepare data for decision-making and managethe work of operational managers (10).

Excellent Management: Much of the work of senior managers in dynamics is similar to that of the operational managers. With this difference that top managers do more comprehensive and long-term planning. Most of their working time is spent with people outside the organization, and less of their time is spent with subordinates (10).

In this study, due to the increase in respondents’ participation and collecting comments from more people, census method was used for senior and middle management levels. For executive managers, 191 cases were selected using stratified sampling according to the sample size table, over the size of the community (Korjesi and Morgan and Kohan). In statistical surveys, when subpopulations within an overall population vary, it is useful to sample each subpopulation (stratum) independently.

Considering the research objectives, two questionnaires were used for data collection. The first questionnaire assessed personality characteristics of each director, and the second measured occupational success. In each of the two questionnaires, five underlying questions such as age, gender, work experience, job type and management level were designed, and then specific questions relevant to the aims of the study were asked. In the personality assessment questionnaire, 50 questions were designed for the two introversion and extroversion dimensions and 20 questions were designed for the occupational assessment questionnaire.

Rating inquiries was designed corresponding to the Personality Characteristics Questionnaire and was rated on a four point Likert scale, including "never", "sometimes", "often" or "always"; the lowest score was assigned to "never" (1 point) and the highest score to "always" (4 points). Also, scoring for the reversed questions was opposite.The management occupational success questions was rated on a four Likert scale with "very low", "low", "high" and "very high", and a minimum point (1) was assigned to "very low" and the highest point (4) was assigned to "very high".

In this research, two questionnaires of personality characteristic and career success were used as data collection tools. Both questionnaires were designed based on the thecritical framework and the research background, and according to the opinions of teachers and with the approval of the faculty supervisor and the consultant.

Formal validity and content validity were used to assess the validity of the research tools. The two questionnaires were given to several statisticians, experts, and experienced teachers in the field of managers` personality characteristic and behavioral sciences. To incease the validity of the questionnaires, these experts made some changes if it was needed.

To assess the reliability of the research tools, Cronbach's alpha was used, and the final reliability of the personality characteristic questionnaire and occupational success questionnaire was found to be 0.84 and 0.95, respectively, which indicates good reliability of the tools.

In order to collect data and ensure accuracy and quality of the received data, the respondents were interviewed face- to- face, and the research aims and its importance were explained to themin the first stage. Verbal consent was obtained from the participants, and questionnaires were given only to those willing to participate in the study.

In the last step, after collecting the questionnaires, scored responses were entered into the software SPSS version 17. Descriptive statistics approach was used to organize, summarize and classify the raw scores and calculate frequencies, averages and percentages. In addition, Pearson correlation test and independent comparison (Independent T-TEST) at a significance level of 0.05 were used to determine the significant relationships between the variables.

Results

Findings revealed that out of 321 participants in the study, 160 (8.49%) were female and 161 (2.50%) were male. Also, in terms of managerial levels, 7.2% were senior managers, 33.3% were middle managers, and the rest (5.59%) were executive managers.

The mean±SD age of the participants was 45+5 years; the managers’age groups are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Distribution of the participants according to their age

Age	‏>30	30-40	40-50	<50	Sum
Number	10	142	131	38	321
Percent	3.1	44.2	40.8	11.8	100
Commulative Percent	3.1	47.4	88.2	100

Other findings revealed that most of the participants had a work experience of 11 to 20 years. However, 18.7% (n= 60) had less than 11 years of experience, and only 2.5% (n= 8) had more than 30 years of experience.

In terms of participants employment status, 87.2% (n= 280) of the respondents were confirmed registered nurses and 2.8% (n= 9) were experimental registered nurses; and considering the 6.5% (n= 21) of the total contract employees, about 96.6% enjoyed a good and safe place of employment and only 3.4% were contractual, which is a very small percentage of the sample size.

Findings obtained from the analysis of managers’ personality questionnaires revealed that the total introspection variable in all three categories of managers weighted average was 2.92 with 27.0 SD. This finding for the extroversion variable weighted average of the three categories of managers was 2.96 with 0.34 SD. Meanwhile, occupational success variable weighted average of the three categories of managers was 2.98 with 0.98 SD. These findings implied that the sum of these entire dimensions among the directors of Iran University of Medical Sciences was higher than moderate (2.5).

Table 2 demonstrates the average of each study variable based on the age of the respondents. These findings revealed that higher averages in all three major variables were among those respondents who were 40 years of age or older. In order to study the differences in operational parameters of the study from the obtained means, the average difference test was performed; and the null hypothesis was accepted and significant differences were found for introversion and occupational success variables.

Table 2

IndependentT-test for comparing variables based on the participants` age

Variable	Sample	Independent T-test (α=0.05)
		Number	Mean	SD	Difference mean	df	α	p	Critical area
									>	<
Introversion	>40	152	2.93	0.27			0.046
	<40	169	2.99	0.28	-0.061	319	0.045	-2.009	1.96	-1.96
Extraversion	>40	152	2.94	0.30			0.803
	<40	169	2.94	0.31	-0.008	319	0.803	-0.250	1.96	-1.96
Job success	>40	152	2.89	0.55			0.008
	<40	169	3.04	0.50	-0.156	-0.156	0.009	-2.648	1.96	-1.96

Similarly, Table 3 demonstrates the mean of each variable based on the work experience. These findings indicated that the higher mean belonged to those with more experience. In order to detect the meaningfulness of the differences in the operational parameters, the calculated mean difference of the average difference test was used.

Table 3

Independent T-test for comparing variables based on the participants`years of experience

Variable	Sample	Independent T-test (α=0.05)
		Number	Mean	SD	Difference mean	df	α	p	Critical area
									>	<
Introversion	>20	192	2.93	0.27			0.007
	<20	129	3.01	0.28	-0.085	319	0.007	-2.702	1.96	-1.96
Extraversion	>20	192	2.90	0.30			0.203
	<20	129	2.97	0.31	-0.044	319	0.205	-1.271	1.96	-1.96
Job success	>20	192	2.94	0.54			0.167
	<20	129	3.02	0.52	-0.083	319	0.163	-1.308	1.96	-1.96

Other findings revealed no significant relationship between variables of introversion and extroversion and occupational successin senior management (p> 0.05). However, there was a direct but incomplete relationship between introversion and extroversion, which was correlated with job success among middle and executives managers.

Conclusion

This study aimed to recognize the relationship between the introversion and extraversion characteristics and occupational success of managers of Iran University of Medical Sciences.

The results of this study suggested that the introverted managers at different levels enjoy more occupational success than other managers. These findings are in agreement with those of researches which found that introverted managers are more participative and often make more successful decisions and have more occupational success (11). However, unlike the present study, other studies have suggested that extraverts are more successful (9).

Other studies found a correlation between extroversion and occupational success variables in middle managers in general. However, this correlation is direct and incomplete. Although this finding has been confirmed in a similar study (12), it is in contradiction with Salimi and colleagues study, who found no significant relationship between occupational success and introversion-extraversion (9).

On the other hand, in this study, introversion and occupational advancement in the higher-level managers were independent. This independence showed the type of influence of environmental factors on the character of senior managers. This conclusion is consistent with that of the Jung’s study (4).

Other findings of this study revealed no significant relationship between the introverted senior managers and their job success, despite the fact that these managers are more participative and encourage theiremployees to participate inthe decision making processes.Thus, despite the findings of some previous studies (13), in some organizations, senior managers' occupational success has little relevance to their decision-making style.

On the other hand, the zero assumption of correlation between extraversion and job success has not been confirmed at the level of senior managers. In other words, it is not always the case that senior managers with higher levels of communication skills have more occupational success. This lack of relation and lack of significant relationship could be due to many factors that determine the research flow as intervening variables.

Introspection and occupational success have a direct and imperfect correlation, and this topic indicates this fact, that the introverted middle managers enjoy more job success. The correlation between these items has always existed, but in some cases it may be weaker and don’t show a direct and correct relationship especially in middle managers.

In addition, a correlation was found between extraversion and job success in middle managers. However, this correlation depended on the condition and location of the organization and other confounding variables.

Finally, in executive managers, a direct but incomplete correlation was seen between introversion and occupational success of managers. However, this correlation and its imperfectness need more scientific research. In this level, there was a correlation between extraversion and job success variables. However, this correlation was also incomplete, meaning that variables needed to be carefully examined to be identified.

Finally, in a general conclusion, it seems that in all three levels of managers, if managers communicated more with employees and if the subject of communication had a more executive nature, then correlation rate would increase between extroversion and introversion with job success variables.Therefore, conducting further research on this topic is highly suggested.