03 / WORKING STYLE
Personality inventory
Uses the Five-Factor model and pairwise combinations of the factors to explain a person’s working style, how they relate to others and how they tend to behave under different conditions.
- KEY QUESTION
- How does the person tend to behave while doing the work?
- CONTRIBUTION TO THE REPORT
- Five-factor profile and context-based typology interpretations
The Five-Factor framework
The personality inventory addresses a person’s typical tendencies in the work environment. Each dimension is interpreted on a continuum; a low or high score is not good or bad in itself.
- Emotional stability
- Emotional reactions to pressure, uncertainty and difficulty, and the tendency to recover.
- Extraversion
- The tendency towards social interaction, visibility, initiating communication and connecting with one’s surroundings.
- Openness to experience
- Curiosity, exploring new ideas, and an orientation towards different perspectives and learning.
- Agreeableness / cooperation
- Building partnerships, considering others, compromise and interpersonal approach.
- Conscientiousness / self-discipline
- Planning, order, task follow-up, sustaining goals and commitment to obligations.
From factor pairs to behavioural patterns
Typology logic reads two factors together to form hypotheses about working style. The example below shows how openness and conscientiousness can be interpreted together in the context of learning.
Example interpretation · Learning style
Openness × Conscientiousness
Openness: High · Conscientiousness: High
Turning ideas into practice
A tendency to explore new methods and try them out in a planned way. It is worth watching that priorities do not multiply more than necessary.
This example illustrates the logic of interpretation. The “high” distinction is not a scoring threshold on its own; actual interpretation depends on the scale used, appropriate norms and the role context.
What does the personality report include?
- Working style
- A balanced summary of the five factors and the behavioural tendencies that emerge from pairwise combinations.
- Role context
- Under which conditions a tendency may be a strong contribution and under which it may create a development need.
- Verification in the interview
- Past-behaviour examples and open questions to test the interpretation.
- Management and development
- Support suggestions on feedback, communication, task follow-up and the learning environment.