Characteristics Of A Field Marshall example essay topic

1. Meyers-Briggs Keirsey Sorter Personality Test classifies temperament into four general types - i) Artisans ii) Guardians ) Idealists iv) Rationals Each of these temperament categories are further subdivided according to specific traits and characteristics into INTO, ENTJ, INTO, ENTJ etc. After taking the Keirsey Sorter Personality Test I found myself belonging to the Rational Temperament Category with the ENTJ type. This represents a character of Field Marshall's who are very good in marshalling and organizing their resources through systematic planning. The most important trait of this temperament is that the people believe that they have a rationale for everything they do and that whatever they do makes sense.

They always have some logic or reasoning behind their actions and try to be very analytical in their approach. Though the Field Marshall's are very structured and systematic, these qualities are often overshadowed by their rapidly growing skills in organizing. They have some similarities with the Supervisor type which is evident by their tendency to establish plans for a task, enterprise or organization, but they search more for policy and goals rather than regulations and procedures. The Field Marshall's are often motivated by goal directed reasons for doing a task rather than feelings and intuition. Efficiency and effectiveness are the trademarks of a good Field Marshall. Thus the Field Marshall's have good organizational and coordinating skills which means that they are likely to be good at systematizing, ordering priorities, generalizing, summarizing, analyzing and at marshalling resources.

2) The character sketch of a Field Marshall is in concord with my personality type. I am person who is very logical and methodical in my work. I am often described as a person whose "Head rules the heart". I have a very analytical mind and always try to do things in a step by step approach.

This has been reflected a number of times during my projects, which I have done in other courses. After receiving the project I do not hasten into it and immediately start working on it, instead I spend a few days in figuring out the problem, then developing ways to solve it and once all this has been done, get down to executing it. I am only convinced into doing something if it has a rationale behind it rather than emotional content. I am very systematic in my work and try to do everything according to a preplanned schedule. I maintain a calendar and have all the things to do and important dates noted down.

I also love organizing and managing events which has been evident from the fact I organized a couple of cultural shows as well as a college fest during my undergraduate years. During these events another strong characteristic which became overt was my ability to come up with backup plans whenever something went out of order. Thus a majority of the traits of my personality relate to the characteristics of a Field Marshall as described by Keirsey Sorter and so I would say that this test definitely represents a true image of my personality. 3) Different people have different personalities and each personality has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some of the strengths and weaknesses of my personality type are listed below: Strengths: i) Good at marshalling resources and organizational skills: These skills come into play while organizing some big event or a function where all the resources have to be appropriately utilized. e.g. The person organizing a career fair. ii) Highly developed analytical skills and very systematic and structured in performing tasks. They also have uncanny ability to organize units into smooth functioning systems to achieve short term and long term objectives.) Eg: These qualities are very important to people in positions of Production Managers.

The managers have to carefully plan, schedule and execute and the production of a component in coordination with other departments. iv) They have tireless devotion to their jobs They are very dedicated and motivated to their jobs which leads them to be sometimes over engrossed in their work v) They are very tolerant of established procedures and are also capable of abandoning these procedures if it comes in the way of accomplishing their goals. Eg: Consider a bureaucratic organization in which the communication and flow of information takes place only according to the chain of command. In this case the Field marshals would disregard this procedure if they feel that the information to be conveyed is more important in terms of achieving the organizations goals. vi) All these above qualities when put together makes them very effective and efficient Weaknesses: i) Structural and functional engineering techniques as practiced in organizations are not that highly developed as compared to organizational skills. Eg: these people tend to concentrate more organizing and executing a project rather than the technical details of the project ii) Less desire to communicate the results of their efforts to others Eg: They might be working on an innovative idea which if implemented might result in great benefits. They are generally less inclined to disclose the progress they have made, unless they are absolutely certain that their plans have been a success. They lose out on valuable opinion and insights other people might have to offer.) They cannot build organizations and even more so cannot push to implement their goals Eg: A typical example here would be of bright engineer who comes up with a great idea and puts it across to the management, and does not persist with it once the management rejects the idea. iv) They may often have to turn to an inventor or architect to come up with new and innovative ideas since they are often to engrossed in doing things the logical way and thereby lose their creative touch. v) Their tireless devotion to their jobs mentioned as a strength above could sometimes be detrimental as they could easily block out other areas of their life for the sake of work. vi) They often do not take into account people's feelings while doing things and are only motivated by rationale, which might lead to sour relationships.

2. Managers and leaders have contrasting styles and characteristics. Managers thrive in a orderly work environment whereas a leader would thrive in a more chaotic environment. Managers goals arise out of necessities rather than desires and they tend to adopt impersonal attitude towards goals. They are known to be problem solvers with emphasis on rationality and control. They tend to view work as an enabling process involving some combination of people and ideas interacting to establish strategies and make decisions.

They help the process by calculating the interests in opposition, planning when controversial issues should surface and reducing tensions by acting as mediators. In terms of relating with other people managers prefer to work with people avoiding solitary activity. The need to seek out others with whom to work and collaborate stand out as an important characteristic of managers. They relate to people according to the role they play in decision-making and they may lack empathy or the capacity to sense intuitively the thoughts and feelings of others. Managers strive for a win-win situation by trying to reconcile differences between people and maintaining the balance of power. Managers thus make the organizations fatter in bureaucratic and political intrigue and leaner in direct, hard activity and warm human relationships.

They are linked in a process whose purpose is to maintain a controlled as well as rational and equitable structure. Leaders adopt personal and active attitude towards goals. Leaders always look around for potential opportunities, inspire subordinates and fire up the creative process with their own energy. Leaders views on work are totally opposite to that of managers. Where managers act to limit choices, leaders develop fresh approaches to long-standing problems and open issues to new problems. They are temperamentally disposed to seek out risk and danger, especially where the chance of opportunity and reward appears promising.

Leaders are primarily concerned with ideas of people and this forms their basis developing relationships. They relate in more intuitive and empathetic ways. They attract strong feelings of identity and difference or of love and hate. Human relations often appear turbulent, intense and at times even disorganized.

Thus their relationships with employees and coworkers are often dynamic and therefore considering all the above aspects their work environment appears to be chaotic.