Personality assumes various names and concepts in present day world. Since humans started believing that they are superior than other creations, because they possess this rare tool called mind, they have used every possible means to explain how mind can affect the development of human characteristics and perspectives, and all of they constitute personality.

Eighteenth century was a booming era for a school of theorists who practiced psychoanalysis; Freud, Erikson, Adler and Jung were few of them. They believed in the innate basis of personality development psychology. Freud described the various stages of personality through which a child progresses and reached adulthood. He famously talked about Id, ego and superego, and how inner sex drives and how inner conflicts between the drives and what a child gets from his/her surroundings determines his fixation and deviant personality development later on in life. He claimed that humans have minimal control over such development as the stages are determined on an unconscious level.

While psychoanalysis was still in boom, behaviourists slowly started taking over the psychological arena. They theorized a stimulus and response phenomenon, where human beings behave in response to the situations and triggers in the environments, and that’s the cause of variant personalities. These behaviourists took a step ahead and started studying animal models and relating them back to human behaviour. They believed that personality forms as a result of situations invoking a response in us. Which is positively or negatively reinforced by the environment, and after sufficient reinforcements, we develop a certain pattern of behaviour called “habits”. Dollard and Miller are some of the pioneer behaviourists.

The humanistic approach is another way to address personality development theories. Humanists believe in complete independence of mind, and contrast the other approaches who believe in human tendency to have innate or learned personality development. Maslow and Carl Rogers have been the fundamental humanists. Maslow brought out the stages to achieve of self actualization and utmost fulfilment. He like other humanists believed in the free will of human mind, which can make good and bad choices for itself and thus bring out individual personality traits. The whole emphasis has been placed on consciousness and how it brings about personality depending on subjective view of the self. Since every self is different, it would view the world in a different manner and thus present a variant personality. No importance has been associated to unconsciousness, as basis of human mind has been claimed to be the awareness and independence of self.

There are several conflicts and disagreements within each panel of theorists, but combines them all are their fundamental beliefs on what determines personality i.e. psychoanalysts believe in sex and aggressive drives to be the motive, behaviourists signify environment and its interaction with human drives, and humanists believe in the inner choice to reach fulfilment and self actualization.

Personality development is essential for every individual and this implies for people of all age groups. Whether you are a student, busy executive, a government employee or sportsman, personality development is essential for all. In the spheres of corporate world, personality development holds even more significance. According to one study, many qualified and talented professionals fail to find a suitable job or are not able to climb the corporate ladder because of lack of certain personality traits. These traits range from lack of confidence, low self-esteem, poor relationship building skills to not so good presentation skills and poor communication skills. Talent and knowledge alone don’t take one too far. These basics need to be supported by well rounded personality traits.

Business enterprises have understood such situations quite well and have focused upon conducting personality development seminars or training sessions. Some of the famous corporate trainers and renowned personality development specialists are called upon to address issues faced by the in-house employees. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement as organizations gain from enhanced personalities of employees and the workforce gain from new insights and issues earlier addressed. Compared to going whole hog to hiring new employees, recruitment and training related costs, such programs consisting of personality development presentations are much more cost-effective and beneficial.

Usually personality development training covers several aspects of human growth right from personal to professional ones. Some programs focus more on general aspects faced by each and every individual like confidence, self-esteem, communication skills and people handling skills by providing personality development module. Some other programs are more specific in nature and cater to honing particular skill sets. The later one is more preferable mode of training in organizational set-up. The skill sets could be developing leadership quality, professional responsibilities, managerial skills and about increasing productivity. Such training programs also include personality development activities with a focus on enhancing professionalism and employee’s level of competency.

There are numerous benefits of personality development training programs. It helps in all round personality growth of an individual. Professionally, it proves to be of immense significance in boosting an individual’s career. Training seminars also bring together professionals from different departments together and that helps in fostering better bonding and understanding. Many professionals decide to join such Personality development power point presentations to build expertise in business. Professionally, personality development training is recommended for diverse range of professions including teaching, nursing, career counseling, management and technicians. Life has become too demanding and to cope up with resulting stress and difficulty, personality development programs come very handy.

Personality development is a much talked and discussed about concept. A great number of psychoanalysts, psychologists and philosophers have tried to analyse different stages of personality development. There is plenty of Personality development material on stages of personality development. The moot point is how do our personalities develop? One can delve deep into these stages from different angles. Some of the prominent psychologists have put forward interesting insights into evolution of a personality.

Some of the famous theories given are,
– Trait theory of personality that talks about number of broad traits comprising a personality.
– The “Big Five” personality dimensions that categorise personality traits and explains thereafter characteristics of each category.
– Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid that covers aspects like self-actualization and other basic necessities.
– Self-Efficacy theory was propounded by Albert Bandura.
– Psychogenic needs theory given by Henry Murray that finds psychogenic needs at core of human personality.
– Sigmund Freud’s Psychosexual stages of personal development and
– Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial stages of personality development.

Most of these theories have been seen from the perspective of psychosocial and psychoanalytic themes. Erikson’s psychosocial theory is a very famous personality development theory and has found many takers because of it taking into consideration eight stages of human life, from the time child is born to old age when life ends. The main element of his theory is ‘ego identity’. According to him, ego identity keeps on changing and evolving as humans come to new environment and their experiences are subject to change.

The first stage is of Trust versus Mistrust and it takes place between birth and one year of age. In this stage child develops trust and security based on the dependability and quality of his parents. But if parents fail to provide love and affection to the kid he will have hard time trusting others.

The second stage is Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt that takes place during early childhood and here, child grows from a totally dependent infant to a toddler. Child learns to move around independently and is introduced to toilet training. Child’s control over his choices, body’s function leads to feeling of control and he will become self-competent.

The third stage is of Initiative versus Guilt which begins when a child enters three years of age. Child starts exploring his power, goes to pre-school and gets a feel of social interaction. Successful child in this stage feels control but in case he fails to acquire skills he will have feeling of guilt and self-doubt.

The fourth stage is of Industry versus Inferiority that runs from the age of five to thirteen years. Increasing social interaction, developing sense of pride and adequate encouragement are highlights of this stage. Absence of these will make him develop inferiority complex.

The fifth stage is of Identity versus Role Confusion which is very crucial. This is also a typical teenage phase where child is confused between childhood and adulthood. He is expected to make new identity in every sphere like career, social domain and relationships. He also learns about gender roles. Good experience in this stage will make him a confident adult who is ready to take responsibilities.

The sixth stage is of Intimacy versus Isolation and it occurs between ages of 20-40 years. In this phase people develop factors like intimacy and commitment. Every stage builds upon skills developed in previous stages. People who fail to develop commitment and intimacy in this stage turn out to be depressed and commitment phobic.
The seventh stage is Generativity versus Stagnation which is all about consistency in building up important aspects of life like career and family. Individual also learn to give back to society in this phase. Failure to do so leads of stagnation and meaninglessness.

The last stage is Ego Integrity versus Despair where individual reflects back on his life. Ego identity is completely formed in last stage. A sense of accomplishments will help in developing a sense of integrity and wisdom else feeling of bitterness and despair.
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The importance of a well developed personality is known to everyone. While explaining personality it can be compared to a building or a structure. The logic being used here is that a building exists only when it has a strong foundation, similarly personality can only last long if it has formidable basis. The foundations of personality are character, attitude and behavior. Mental set-up also plays a big role here. They say, seeds of winning or losing first germinate in mind and that ultimately decides the eventual result. If one has concluded in his mind that he is going to lose or he won’t be able to do a particular thing or this particular job is way beyond his reach, he has lost it there only even without actually doing it. So having a strong and positive mindset is extremely crucial. If a personality has elements of values and ethics it will always excel no matter how adverse situations are. 

Physical appearance can only last that long. Unless an individual’s physical attributes are well supported by his attitude, personality will remain incomplete. Personality development gets biggest boost when an individual himself is willing to excel in all spheres of life. Primarily it is self-driven factor. Alternately people also prefer to go for Personality development course where they learn numerous important aspects of a personality. Such course covers a wide range of topics related to personality development. 

One more way to improve personality is by joining personality development game. This phenomenon is increasingly becoming popular in corporate set up and educational institutions. Many schools and colleges try to organize these games that play a major role in shaping up personalities of the students. On one hand these games are entertaining and fun and at the same time they act as great team building exercises. The awareness about crucial role of personality in shaping one’s future has led to many educational institutions giving personality development games a top priority. 

If we look at business world, personality development games have become a routine affair. Management makes sure employees at different hierarchy level participate in such activities. The benefits of such games are manifold. It helps in team-building along with developing a new sense of commitment and responsibility. Some organizations emphasise personality development skills game to nurture future managers and to develop leadership qualities.

When Charles Darwin had first thought of ‘Survival of the fittest’, even in his wildest imagination he wouldn’t have thought of the statement standing true after one and a half century. More so, going by the way things are taking place, this statement will hold truer even after few centuries. All the spheres of life have increasingly become challenging and only the fittest and updated humans can excel in this race. Competition has intensified and more and more number of people are scrambling for fewer numbers of slots. Only the right blends of personalities are able to make it through the rat race and stand tall amidst the huge competition. Take for instance any field, whether its education, career, sports or even politics, the success has been registered by people who have managed to understand the complexities involved and have molded themselves according to the need of the work.

To succeed in life, an individual must have good personality and should be able to contribute equally well in all the walks of life. Talking about personality, the word has acquired huge significance in modern world. A good personality indicates having an all-round persona, ability to deal with demanding, unpredictable and ever changing social and business environment and finally, effective presentation skills. In fact, these aspects don’t really sum up the complete definition of term ‘personality’. There are many more facets to this crucial word.

If we go by the dictionary definition of personality, it infers “somebody’s set of characteristics: the totality of somebody’s attitudes, interests, behavioral patterns, emotional responses, social roles, and other individual traits that endure over long periods of time.” Actually, this again is one-off definition and different dictionaries and thesaurus will interpret this magical term in different ways.

For many, personality is all about the physical appearance and combination of various external characteristics of an individual like height, weight, stature and complexion. But then, personality is far bigger than mere physical appearance.

Now that we have got an idea of ‘personality’, we also need to pay attention to personality development. One will come across many corporate trainers, intensive programs, motivational speeches and inspirational books with the primary aim of personality development of an individual. Personality development covers a wide range of mental, physical and behavioral aspects like Body language, anger management, public speaking, communication skills, fitness quotient, relationship building ability, self-drive and attitudinal traits.

In short, personality development focuses on three major components of character, behavior and attitude. To succeed in any sphere of life, one must explore the immense possibilities existing within to develop his personality. There are plenty of personality development courses and programs where one can equip himself with all the necessary tools required to make a success of himself..

Definition of Management

The term ‘management’ encompasses an array of different functions undertaken to accomplish a task successfully. In the simplest of terms, management is all about ‘getting things done’. However, it is the way and the process of how one achieves ones target or goals and it is in this respect that management is considered an art and a science as well.

The term management may be recently defined, but it existed at a time when men started learning the art of organizing, strategizing (during wars) and/or simply planning. At the core of it, management was quintessentially considered as an art of ‘managing men’ and hence the term “manage-men-T.”

At the roots, management evolved when the definition of knowledge became practically skewed rather than being plain ‘rational’. In some way, Rousseau (1972) pointed out “A real knowledge of things may be a good thing in itself, but the knowledge of men and their opinions is better, for in human society.”

And much later, management scholar, Peter Drucker (1993) defined management as “Supplying knowledge to find out how existing knowledge can best be applied to produce results is, in effect, what we mean by management. But knowledge is now also being applied systematically and purposefully to determine what new knowledge is needed, whether it is feasible, and what has to be done to make knowledge effective. It is being applied, in other words, to systematic innovation.” (Drucker, 1993)

From the above two definitions, it is clear that management is a creative as well as a systematic flow of knowledge that can be applied to produce results by using human as well as other resources in an effective way. Management has not been limited to managing human resource; management today has been segregated into various branches like financial management, strategic management, operations management, time management, crisis management, marketing management etc. Each of these is a separate branch that is being handled by managers who specialize in these fields.

Today the importance of management from an organization’s point of view has increased multifold. It is only through effective management that companies are developing and executing their business’s policies and strategies to maximize their profits and provide with the best of products and services.

Management today combines creative, business, organizational, analytical and other skills to produce effective goal-oriented results! Some of the key functions in management includes learning to delegate, planning and organizing, communicating clearly, controlling situations, motivating employees, adapting to change, constantly innovating and thinking of new ideas, building a good team and delivering results which are not just figure -bound but results that also focus on overall growth and development.
Management focuses on the entire organization from both a short and a long-term perspective. Management is the managerial process of forming a strategic vision, setting objectives, crafting a strategy and then implementing and executing the strategy.

Management goes beyond the organization’s internal operations to include the industry and the general environment. The key emphasis is on issues related to environmental scanning and industry analysis, appraisal of current and future competitors, assessment of core competencies, strategic control and the effective allocation of organizational resources.

In general terms, there are two approaches to management:

-The Industrial Organization Approach: This approach is based on economic theory which deals with issues like competitive rivalry, resource allocation, economies of scale. This approach to management assumes rationality, self interested behavior, profit maximization.

– The Sociological Approach: This approach deals primarily with human interactions. It assumes rationality, satisfying behavior, profit sub-optimality.

Management theories can also be divided into two sets. One is the set that concentrates mainly on efficiency and another is the set that concentrates mainly on effectiveness. Efficiency is about doing things the right way. It involves eliminating waste and optimizing processes. Effectiveness is about doing the right things.

A good management style is a blend of both efficiency and effectiveness. There is no point in acting efficiently if what you are doing will not have the desired effect.

Management techniques can be viewed as either bottom-up, top-down, or collaborative processes.

In India, largely the top down approach is popular. In the top-down approach, the management makes the decisions, which the employees have no choice but to accept. On the other hand, in the bottom-up approach, employees submit proposals to their managers who, in turn, funnel the best ideas further up the organization. However the bottom up approach is not a very popular approach in India as most of the Indian businesses are family run businesses.