Key personality traits of sales managers.

BACKGROUND: Sales managers are crucial for producing positive sales outcomes for companies. However, there has been a relative dearth of scholarly investigations into the personal attributes of sales managers. Such information could prove important in the recruitment, selection, training needs identification, career planning, counseling, and development of sales managers. OBJECTIVE: Drawing on Holland's vocational theory, we sought to identify key personality traits that distinguish sales managers from other occupations and are related to their career satisfaction. PARTICIPANTS: The main sample was comprised of a total of 978 sales managers employed in a large number of companies across the United States (along with a comparison sample drawn from 79,512 individuals from other professional occupations). METHODS: Participants completed an online version of Resource Associates' Personal Style Inventory as well a measure of career satisfaction. RESULTS: Our sample of 978 sales managers had higher levels of Assertiveness, Customer Service Orientation, Extraversion, Image Management, Optimism, and Visionary Style; and lower levels of Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Intrinsic Motivation, Openness, and Tough-Mindedness than a sample of 79,512 individuals in a variety of other occupations. Nine of these traits were significantly correlated with sales managers' career satisfaction. CONCLUSION: Based on the results, a psychological profile of sales managers was presented as were implications for their recruitment, selection, training, development, and mentoring.

Personality correlates of self-employed small business owners' success.

OBJECTIVE: Drawing on prior occupational choice research on entrepreneurs and self-employed business owners, we examined personality predictors of their occupational business success and work satisfaction. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURES: A sample of 147 small business owners completed a web-based assessment of 14 work-related personality traits--adaptability, autonomy, competitiveness, dependability, emotional resilience, goal-setting, optimism, persistence, risk tolerance, self-promotion, networking, and tolerance for financial insecurity, work-based locus of control, and work drive--and three self-reported indices of business success--revenue growth, profit growth, and income growth--as well as multiple facets of individual satisfaction. Criterion variables included composite business success and overall satisfaction. RESULTS: Ten traits correlated with business success. The top four personality predictors of success--goal-setting, social networking, emotional resilience, and work drive--together accounted for 16% of the variance. Similarly, 12 of 14 personality traits were positively related to overall satisfaction. The top three personality predictors of satisfaction--optimism, work-based locus of control, and work drive--accounted for 29% of the variability in satisfaction. An expectancy analysis revealed that the percent of participants who reported at least a 20% increase in sales and profits the preceding year was 26% versus 54% for individual scoring in the lower and upper third of a personality composite measure. CONCLUSIONS: Results carry implications for future research, and have direct, practical applications for prospective and current entrepreneurs and self-employed owners of small businesses.

Personality traits and career satisfaction of health care professionals.

Based on Holland's theorizing that vocational satisfaction arises from a good match between one's personality and career choice, one purpose of the study was to examine broad and narrow personality traits that characterize health care workers in comparison with professionals from other occupations. Also investigated were ways in which characteristic traits of health care workers were related to career satisfaction. Professionals utilizing the services of eCareerfit.com responded to online surveys that have been demonstrated to produce reliable and valid measures of broad and narrow personality traits and levels of career satisfaction. An independent sample t test was used to compare means of health care workers with those from other occupations. Pearson product-moment correlations were then computed to assess relationships between the traits and career satisfaction of health care professionals. Two traits that were particularly strong among health care workers were also significantly correlated with career satisfaction: work drive and conscientiousness. Other traits were found to be significantly related to career satisfaction in health care but were not uniquely high in the sample of health care professionals. To increase career satisfaction of health care professionals and thus to improve retention rates, administrators should consider focusing on recruiting and selecting individuals with higher levels of key personality traits.