Communication Skills

Personality

“Personality is that pattern of characteristic thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that

distinguishes one person from another and that persists over time” “It is the sum of
biologically based and learnt behaviour which forms the person's unique responses to
environmental stimuli”

People generally believe that personality refers to personal appearance with a charming
smile or outlook. But psychologists are of the view that personality is dynamic in nature and
it is concerned with growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system.
Personality is defined as the combination of stable physical and mental characteristics that
give the individual his or her identity. These characteristics include how one looks, thinks,
acts, and feels. It can also be referred as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts
and interacts with others

Key elements of personality are:

1. Behaviour: A stereotyped response to an internal or external stimulus.

2. Character: An individual’s set of emotional, cognitive, and behavioural patterns
learned and accumulated over time.
3. Cognition: The act or process of knowing or perceiving.
4. Cognitive: The ability to think, learn, and memorize.
5. Gene: A building block of inheritance, which contains the instructions for the
production of a particular protein, and is made up of a molecular sequence found on
a section of DNA.
6. Identity: The condition of being the same with, or possessing, a character that is well
described, asserted, or defined.
7. Maturity: A state of full development or completed growth.
8. Socialization: The process by which new members of a social group are integrated in
the group.
9. Temperament: A person’s natural disposition or inborn combination of mental and
emotional traits. The degree of a person’s success is directly dependent on the kind
of personality he has. There are various key factors of a good personality and to
enhance those characteristics of a human being is actually called personality
development.

Determinants of personality

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Personality is a result of the combination of four factors, i.e., physical environment,
heredity, culture, and particular experiences. Here we discuss each factor determining
personality separately.

1. Biological Factors
The study of the biological contributions to personality may be studied under three
heads:

Heredity
Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Physical stature,
facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy
level, and biological rhythms are characteristics that are considered to be inherent from
one’s parents.
The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s
personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.

Brain
The second biological approach is to concentrate on the role that the brain plays in
personality. The psychologists are unable to prove empirically the contribution of the
human brain in influencing personality.

Physical Features
A vital ingredient of the personality, an individual’s external appearance, is biologically
determined. The fact that a person is tall or short, fat or skinny, black or white will
influence the person’s effect on others and this in turn, will affect the self-concept.

2. Cultural Factors
Among the factors that influence personality formation is the culture in which we are
raised, early conditioning, norms prevailing within the family, friends and social groups
and other miscellaneous experiences that impact us.
The culture largely determines attitudes towards independence, aggression,
competition, cooperation and a host of other human responses.

3. Family Factors
Whereas the culture generally prescribes and limits what a person can be taught, it is
the family, and later the social group, which selects, interprets and dispenses the
culture. Thus, the family probably has the most significant impact on early personality
development.

A substantial amount of empirical evidence indicates that the overall home environment

created by the parents, in addition to their direct influence, is critical to personality
development.

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 The parents play an especially important part in the identification process, which is
important to the person’s early development.

4. Social Factors
There is increasing recognition given to the role of other relevant persons, groups and
especially organisations, which greatly influence an individual’s personality. This is
commonly called the socialization process.

Socialization involves the process by which a person acquires, from the enormously wide
range of behavioural potentialities that are open to him or her, those that are ultimately
synthesized and absorbed.
Socialization starts with the initial contact between a mother and her new infant. After
infancy, other members of the immediate family – father, brothers, sisters and close
relatives or friends, then the social group: peers, school friends and members of the
work group – play influential roles.

5. Situational Factors
Human personality is also influenced by situational factors. The effect of the
environment is quite strong. Knowledge, skill and language are obviously acquired
and represent important modifications of behavior.
An individual’s personality, while generally stable and consistent, does change in
different situations. The varying demands of different situations call forth different
aspects of one’s personality.

SWOT analysis

 SWOT analysis is a technique that enables organizations or individual to move from

everyday problems and traditional strategies to a fresh prospective.
 SWOT analysis looks at your strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and
threats your business faces. SWOT can help your company face its greatest
challenges and find its most promising new markets
 The SWOT Analysis framework is a very important and useful tool to use in
marketing Management and other business applications

Basic Elements of The SWOT Analysis

Strengths (internal, positive factors)

 Characteristics of the business or individual that give it an advantage over others in

the industry.

• Positive tangible and intangible attributes, internal to an organization or individual.

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 • Beneficial aspects of the organization or the capabilities of an organization, process
capabilities, financial resources, products and services, customer goodwill and brand
loyalty

Weaknesses (internal, negative factors)

 Characteristics that place the firm or individual at a disadvantage relative to others.

 Detract the organization from its ability to attain the core goal and influence its
growth.
 Weaknesses are the factors which do not meet the standards we feel they should
meet. However, weaknesses are controllable. They must be minimized and
eliminated.

Opportunities

 Are external attractive factors that represent reasons your business is likely to
prosper.
 Chances to make greater profits in the environment - External attractive factors that
represent the reason for an organization to exist & develop.
 Arise when an organization can take benefit of conditions in its environment to plan
and execute strategies that enable it to become more profitable.
 Organization should be careful and recognize the opportunities and grasp them
whenever they arise.

Threats (external, negative factors)

 External elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business -
External factors, beyond an organization’s control.
 Arise when conditions in external environment jeopardize the reliability and
profitability of the organization’s business.

Purpose of SWOT analysis

 To help decision makers share and compare ideas.

 To bring a clearer common purpose and understanding of factors for success.
 To organize the important factors linked to success and failure in the business world.
 To help individual or organization to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
 It promotes strategic thinking 11 Job Holder
 When supervisor has issues with work output
 Assigned to a new job
 New financial year – fresh targets
 Job holder seeks to improve performance on the job

Johari’s window

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A model for self-awareness, personal development, group development and understanding
relationship

A simple and useful tool for understanding and training selfawareness, personal
development, improving communications, interpersonal relationships, group dynamics,
team development and intergroup relationships „ Developed by American psychologists
Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in the 1950's, calling it 'Johari' after combining their first
names, Joe and Harry „ Especially relevant due to emphasis on, and influence of, 'soft' skills,
behaviour, empathy, cooperation, inter-group development and interpersonal development

Also referred to as a 'disclosure/feedback model of self-awareness’, and an 'information

processing tool' „ Represents information - feelings, experience, views, attitudes, skills,
intentions, motivation, etc - within or about a person - in relation to their team, from four
perspectives „ Can also be used to represent the same information for a team in relation to
other teams

The four Johari Window perspectives are called 'regions' or 'areas' or 'quadrants'. „ Each
contains and represents the information - feelings, motivation, etc - in terms of whether the
information is known or unknown by the person, and whether the information is known or
unknown by others in the team „ The four regions, areas, quadrants, or perspectives are as
follows, showing the quadrant numbers and commonly used names

It is necessary to improve self-awareness and personal development among individuals

when they are in a group. The ‘Johari’ window model is a convenient method used to
achieve this task of understanding and enhancing communication between the members in
a group. American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham developed this model in
1955. The idea was derived as the upshot of the group dynamics in University of California
and was later improved by Joseph Luft. The name ‘Johari’ came from joining their first two
names. This model is also denoted as feedback/disclosure model of self-awareness.

The Johari Window Model

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The method of conveying and accepting feedback is interpreted in this model. A Johari is
represented as a common window with four panes. Two of these panes represent self and
the other two represent the part unknown to self but to others. The information transfers
from one pane to the other as the result of mutual trust which can be achieved through
socializing and the feedback got from other members of the group.

1. Open/self-area or arena 
Here the information about the person his attitudes, behaviour, emotions, feelings, skills
and views will be known by the person as well as by others. This is mainly the area
where all the communications occur and the larger the arena becomes the more
effectual and dynamic the relationship will be. ‘Feedback solicitation’ is a process which
occurs by understanding and listening to the feedback from another person. Through
this way the open area can be increased horizontally decreasing the blind spot. The size
of the arena can also be increased downwards and thus by reducing the hidden and
unknown areas through revealing one’s feelings to other person.
2. Blind self or blind spot – Information about yourselves that others know in a group but
you will be unaware of it. Others may interpret yourselves differently than you expect.
The blind spot is reduced for an efficient communication through seeking feedback from
others.
3. Hidden area or façade – Information that is known to you but will be kept unknown
from others. This can be any personal information which you feel reluctant to reveal.
This includes feelings, past experiences, fears, secrets etc. we keep some of our feelings

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 and information as private as it affects the relationships and thus the hidden area must
be reduced by moving the information to the open areas.
4. Unknown area – The Information which are unaware to yourselves as well as others.
This includes the information, feelings, capabilities, talents etc. This can be due to
traumatic past experiences or events which can be unknown for a lifetime. The person
will be unaware till he discovers his hidden qualities and capabilities or through
observation of others. Open communication is also an effective way to decrease the
unknown area and thus to communicate effectively.

Personal development

Personal development is a lifelong process. It is a way for people to assess their skills and
qualities, consider their aims in life and set goals in order to realise and maximise their
potential.

This page helps you to identify the skills you need to set life goals which can enhance your
employability prospects, raise your confidence, and lead to a more fulfilling, higher quality
life. Plan to make relevant, positive and effective life choices and decisions for your future to
enable personal empowerment.

Although early life development and early formative experiences within the family, at
school, etc. can help to shape us as adults, personal development should not stop later in
life.

What are personal development goals?

Personal development goals are objectives you set to improve your character, skills and
capabilities. Setting these goals involves assessing yourself and identifying the areas in which
you can improve to maximize your potential. To get started with personal development, you
should create a plan with actionable steps. These steps will help you measure your
improvement and keep you focused on your target.

Benefits of personal development goals for work

 Clear sense of direction

 Improved work ethic

 Better workplace relationships

 Increased productivity

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  How to set personal development goals for work

Steps to begin creating and achieving personal development goals for your career:

1. Create a vision

First, assess your performance and your desires to identify what your personal development
goals are. Use these goals or areas of improvement to create a clear vision of what you want
to be or where you want to be—and when—in the future. This vision, like your goals, should
be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound. Consider your motivations for
this vision and note them carefully.

2. Develop a plan

The next step is to create a plan to achieve your vision. Identify the areas you need to act on
to accomplish your target and begin to articulate objectives to improve in all of them. Divide
each goal into small, manageable steps.

Remember that personal development is a learning process. Take the time to discover your
learning style before moving forward to enable the most effective improvement technique
for each goal.

3. Track your progress

Record your development as you work on your goals. Note the changes you make and the
effects they have on your career. As you do this, you will notice the best practices and reach
your goals faster.

4. Review your plan regularly

It is important to return to your plan periodically to determine if the path you are on is
worthwhile. Consider what you have learned so far and decide if your plan is still relevant.
Depending on your progress, you can adjust your timelines and create space to include new
personal development goals.

Examples of personal development goals for work

There are many goals you could set to begin a personal development plan. Consider
choosing one of these common personal development goals:

Improve your time management

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To make the best use of your time in the workplace, allocate a timeline to every task and
follow it diligently. Time management skills can increase your productivity and efficiency.

Develop emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence describes your control over your emotions and your level of
empathy. Developing this skill can make you a better communicator with your colleagues. In
addition, it can help you to resolve workplace conflicts—a useful trait for leaders and
managers.

Cultivate resilience

A resilient individual moves on from difficult situations quickly. Resilience can be a great fit
as a personal development goal because it keeps you moving forward regardless of denials,
rejections and pushback. With resilience, you will stay focused on your tasks until you
achieve them. Resilience is a major attribute of problem-solvers.

Listen actively

An active listener assimilates what they have heard and considers that information carefully
before providing a response or taking any action. Active listening is an essential
communication skill, so this is a helpful goal if you want to become a better communicator.
It can also help you build trust with your coworkers. 

Develop a growth mindset

A growth mindset is a way of thinking that upholds hard work and dedication as the keys to
success and improvement. With it, you are resilient and see failures as learning
opportunities. When you challenge yourself this way, you can achieve results in the
workplace. Moreover, a growth mindset will improve the way you set goals for yourself,
tracking learnings as well as performance.

Develop a reading habit

Reading more is a great personal development goal because it has many benefits, including
that it is a means of education. There are books on all subjects, including areas related to
professional fields. Invest in them and create a reading schedule for yourself. Furthermore,
reading is a means of opening yourself to the experiences of others. This gives you multiple
perspectives on the world and informs the decisions you make. Altogether, this improves
your competence in the workplace.

Learn new things

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Committing to learning new things is a key step in personal development. While reading is
one method, you can also perform research, sign up for courses or take advantage of online
learning, such as massive open online courses

Improve your public speaking skills

A good public speaker is clear, confident and engaging. Public speaking is important to the
workplace because you may have to address your team in a briefing, deliver a presentation
to the board or pitch to prospective clients. You can join an organization or take a class to
advance your public speaking skills.

Meet new people

Making new business contacts is a great way to build a network and expand the
opportunities available to you in your industry. Creating new relationships can also result in
opportunities for you to share your ideas with others and learn from them.

Self Esteem

 Self-esteem is a way of thinking, feeling, and acting that implies that you accept,
respect, and believe in yourself.
 When you accept yourself, you are okay with both the good and not so good things
about yourself.
 When you respect yourself, you treat yourself well in much the same way you would
treat someone else you respect.
 To believe in yourself means that you feel you deserve to have the good things in
life. It also means that you have confidence that you can make choices and take
actions that will have a positive effect on your life.
 Part of self-esteem is knowing that you are important enough to take good care of
yourself by making good choices for yourself.
 Self-esteem doesn’t mean you think you are better or more important than other
people are, it means that you respect and value yourself as much as other people.
 Self-esteem needs to come from within and not be dependent on external sources
such as material possessions, your status, or approval from others.
 Having self-esteem also means you don’t have to put other people down to feel
good about yourself.

Signs of low self-esteem –

 Lack of confidence
 Negative view of life
 Perfectionistic attitude
 Mistrusting others inappropriately

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  Blaming behavior
 Fear of taking appropriate risks
 Feelings of being unloved and unlovable
 Dependence on others to make decisions
 Fear of being ridiculed
 Distorted view of self and others

Signs of high self-esteem

 Confidence
 Self-direction
 Non-blaming behavior
 Awareness of personal strengths
 Ability to make mistakes and learn from them
 Ability to accept mistakes from others
 Optimism
 Ability to solve problems
 Independent and cooperative attitude
 Feeling comfortable with a wide range of emotions
 Ability to appropriately trust others
 Good sense of personal limitations
 Ability to set boundaries and say no
 Good self-care

Causes of Low Self-Esteem

Nobody is born with low self-esteem; it’s something that is learned. It is the result of
filtering opinions, comments, looks, suggestions, and actions of those around us through a
person’s own feelings and self-image.

Some possible early causes of low self-esteem: -

 Overly critical parents (never good enough, feelings of inferiority or self-criticism)

 Significant childhood losses (abandonment, insecurity)
 Parental abuse, alcoholism, neglect, or rejection (unreliable family atmosphere
resulting in lack of trust, insecurity, inadequacy or worthlessness, anger, guilt,
denying feelings)
 Parental overprotectiveness (lack of confidence)
 Parental overindulgence (feelings of being cheated and insecure because life does
not continue to provide what they learned to expect as a child)

Self-concept

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  Self-concept is the image that we have of ourselves. How exactly does this self-image
form and change over time? This image develops in a number of ways but is
particularly influenced by our interactions with important people in our lives.

 Self-concept is how you perceive your behavior, abilities, and unique

characteristics.1 For example, beliefs such as "I am a good friend" or "I am a kind
person" are part of an overall self-concept.
 Self-concept tends to be more malleable when you're younger and still going
through the process of self-discovery and identity formation. As you age and learn
who you are and what's important to you, these self-perceptions become much
more detailed and organized.

Humanist psychologist Carl Rogers believed that your self-concept was made up of three

different parts:

 Ideal self: The person you want to be

 Self-image: How you see yourself, including attributes like your physical
characteristics, personality traits, and social roles
 Self-esteem: How much you like, accept, or value yourself, which can be impacted by
a number of factors including how others see you, how you t

Benefits of healthy self-esteem

When you value yourself and have good self-esteem, you feel secure and worthwhile. You
have generally positive relationships with others and feel confident about your abilities.
You're also open to learning and feedback, which can help you acquire and master new
skills.

With healthy self-esteem you're:

 Assertive in expressing your needs and opinions

 Confident in your ability to make decisions
 Able to form secure and honest relationships — and less likely to stay in unhealthy ones
 Realistic in your expectations and less likely to be overcritical of yourself and others
 More resilient and better able to weather stress and setbacks

Self-esteem affects virtually every facet of your life. Maintaining a healthy, realistic view of
yourself isn't about blowing your own horn. It's about learning to like and respect yourself

How to build a high self esteem

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1. Pay attention to how you talk to yourself.

Do you have any idea how many negative thoughts go through your mind every day about
yourself? Probably not. Even if it’s just something simple like, “My hair looks terrible today,”
you need to monitor and control your thoughts. So get a notebook and write down every
negative thought that you say to yourself, about yourself. After about a week, take a look.
Then write down why each negative thought is NOT true.

2. Don’t compare yourself to others. But if you do, compare yourself to people who are
not as lucky as you are.

If you constantly compare how you look to Angelina Jolie or your bank account to your
millionaire cousin, you will definitely feel bad about yourself. So here’s an idea‒don’t do it!!
Instead, focus on how lucky you are. If you have a roof over your head and food on the
table, you are among the luckiest people in the world. Be grateful for what you have. Don’t
complain about what you lack.

3. Don’t dwell in the past.

Maybe you did something in the past that you are ashamed of, like cheating on your
significant other. Well, you can’t undo it. All you can do is forgive yourself, decide to do
better, and move on. Replaying it and beating yourself up doesn’t work. Or maybe your past
was “The Good old Days.” Don’t dwell there either. We all age, and we all have the
opportunity to make today and tomorrow the best we can. Move onward and upwards. Not
backwards.

4. Find a “self-esteem buddy” and support each other.

Anyone who has tried to change their habits knows it’s difficult. And your self-esteem is also
a “habit”–it’s a habitual way of thinking about yourself. So it helps to have someone point
out when we are being negative and help us steer in the right direction. Sometimes we
don’t even recognize when we are being down on ourselves because we do it so much. Your
buddy will help you, and you can help them.

5.  Figure out what triggers your feelings of low self-esteem.

Perhaps your older sister was the “perfect” one, so when you’re around her and your family,
you feel worse about yourself. Or maybe you were chubby as a child and still carry that
image of yourself to this day. We all have certain areas where we feel bad about ourselves.
So try to identify what situations or topics trigger your negative thoughts.

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6. Separate your feelings from facts.

You might think you are overweight, but you might not be. For example, perhaps you are
average weight, but you grew up with two older sisters who are naturally skinny. If you
constantly compared yourself to them growing up, you might have labeled yourself as “fat.”
However, those are only your feelings. The facts might be very different. You might only
weigh 130 pounds. That’s not overweight. Facts and feelings are different.

7. Treat yourself as if you are a friend and you’re trying to help boost their (your) self-
esteem.

We are all harder on ourselves than our friends are. While we tear ourselves down, our
good friends try to lift us up. Well, try to act like those friends! Be your own friend. Be kind
to yourself. Give yourself compliments and positive affirmations. You don’t need to rely on
others to do that. You can do it for yourself, too.

8. Believe people when they compliment you.

Some people have difficult time receiving compliments. While this might sounds strange, it’s
true. The reason they have a hard time is because they don’t believe the person’s kind
words. They come up with reasons inside their heads about why they’re wrong or why it’s
not true. Stop doing that! When someone says something nice about you, believe them! Say
“thank you,” and move on with a smile on your face!

9. Use affirmations and visualization.

Affirmations and visualizations are powerful tools to reprogram your thinking. The more you
repeat words or visualize something in your mind, the more your subconscious believes it.
So repeat positive statements to yourself such as, “I am a good person. I am healthy. I am
strong. I am lovable.” And then visualize yourself being and feeling that way.

10. Use hypnosis.

Speaking of reprogramming the subconscious, hypnosis is also a very powerful way to re-
write the negative beliefs in your head. There are many websites that sell positive hypnosis
CDs or mp3’s that you can listen to on a regular basis in order to help build your self-
esteem. If you use them consistently, you will make some giant leaps in feeling good about
yourself.

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11. List your good qualities and past successes.

Sometimes we get too focused on our negatives, and we forget to notice our good qualities!
So take some time to sit down and write out why you are an awesome person. Are you a
great mom? Are you smart? Do you have a career you enjoy? A great marriage? Whatever it
is, write it down. What have you been successful doing in the past? Review these daily to
remind yourself how you’re making a difference in the world.

12. Take action!

While I appreciate you all reading this article, it will do you no good if you don’t actually take
my advice! Don’t just share this on your Facebook page and forget about it. Do something!
Take action! Nothing will change unless you do. It all starts with a decision. So just do it!

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