Culverhouse Conversations

Why Personality Matters at Work

When people talk about leadership or job performance, they often focus on skills, experience or education. But personality plays a big role in how people act at work, especially when stress is high or decisions really matter.

In a recent roundtable, Culverhouse College of Business faculty members Peter Harms, Allen Johnston, Kris Hoang, Bryan Hochstein, and moderator Shawn Mobbs discussed how personality affects executive leadership, auditor performance, cybersecurity risk, and sales success. While personality is often described using the popular “Big Five” traits — openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism — the panel agreed that this model has limits.

“Personality isn’t just about labels,” one faculty member said. “It’s about behavior, especially when power and pressure are involved.”

Limits of Common Personality Models

The Big Five personality traits are well known and widely used. But Harms believes they weren’t designed to predict how people behave in high-pressure roles like executive leadership.

“That model essentially comes from someone taking all the adjectives in the dictionary that describe humans and using a statistical technique called factor analysis to reduce it to five things,” Harms said. “It doesn't actually have any psychological reality to it, and it wasn’t designed with the goal of predicting real-world outcomes.”

That means the model is good at describing people, but not always good at predicting what they’ll do when things get tough. When you want to learn about prediction, who will break under stress or misuse power, there is a need for more targeted traits.

Instead of broad labels, he pointed to traits like ambition, learning ability and emotional control. If you measure the right thing for the right job, prediction improves dramatically.

Peter Harms is a Professor of Management and the Frank Schultz Endowed Professor of Business at Culverhouse. His research focus is leadership, personality, well-being, and workplace deviance.

The Role of Dark Personality Traits

The group also discussed “dark” personality traits, such as narcissism, psychopathy, paranoia and extreme agreeableness. These traits often sound negative, but Harms said they aren’t always bad. Rather, that they are strategies for dealing with challenges that frequently become problems when overused or acted on in the wrong context.

For example, when people gain power or face stress, these traits, which people normally try to keep hidden, tend to leak out. In many roles, paranoia can be harmful. But in cybersecurity, Harms said, “you want someone who’s constantly thinking about what could go wrong.”

Even traits that seem positive can cause problems. “If you’re too agreeable,” Harms said, “you get yes-man cultures.”

He also warned that some leaders look better from above than below. “People with dark traits often look great to their bosses because their aggressiveness and impulsivity appears to be confidence and decisiveness,” he said. “But subordinates are the ones who have to deal with the consequences. They’re the ones who get to see the real dark side of personality.”

Shawn Mobbs is the Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, Professor of Finance, and Thomas D. Russell Professor of Business. Mobbs' research interest is in corporate governance, executive compensation, and mergers and Acquisitions.

Auditor Personality and Skepticism

In accounting, personality matters in quieter ways. Hoang explained that skepticism is the most important trait for auditors.

“Skepticism is a questioning mindset,” said Hoang, Professor of Accounting. “It’s about not taking things at face value.”

Auditors are trained to question information and protect investors. But Hoang said auditing is also a client-focused job.

“Auditors don’t work in isolation,” she said. “They work with clients.”

Her research shows that traits like responsiveness and good communication actually help auditors do better work. “Those traits help auditors gather better information,” Hoang said. “And better information makes skepticism more effective.”

Leadership matters, too. “Partners and managers set the tone,” she said. “The entire team aligns with that.”

Kris Hoang is a Professor of Accounting in the Culverhouse School of Accountancy. Her research examines the judgment and decision-making behaviors of manager, directors, and auditors in corporate governance settings.

Cybersecurity and Personality

In cybersecurity, personality can be a major risk factor. High anxiety, jitteriness, or low stress tolerance are not personality traits that fit in with a cybersecurity role. The paranoia trait aligns much more in this role.

Personality strongly correlates with susceptibility to phishing scams, said Johnston, Hewson Professor of Cybersecurity. Blanket cybersecurity policies fail because people perceive privacy and risk differently.

“About five percent of employees always click,” Johnston said. “It’s the same people every time.”

That suggests training alone isn’t enough. Stress tolerance and impulse control matter a lot in cyber roles. Hyper-personalized policies are impossible, but a structured middle-ground approach is needed.

“There’s no such thing as perfect security,” Johnston said. “Eventually, something will happen.”

The job of security leaders is to limit the damage and avoid burnout. “You can’t stay vigilant forever,” he said.

Allen Johnston is the Hewson Professor of Cybersecurity for Information Systems, Statistics, & Management Science at Culverhouse. His research focus is organizational cybersecurity and enterprise networks and security.

Marketing and Sales Perspectives on Personality

In sales, success often depends on understanding the personalities of other people. “The best salespeople are like chameleons who can adapt to another person’s personality type,” said Hochstein, Associate Professor of Marketing.

The ability to perceive and match a client’s style is as important as having an inherent trait. Sales jobs are now more specialized, with different roles requiring different strengths. This means that “the concept that a salesperson is just an individual” has changed” Hochstein said. “In many companies there are at least four different types of salespeople managing the sales process from start to finish.”

His research shows that no single personality type works best. “There’s no one way to sell to everyone,” he said. Customization is key, so “sellers focus on getting the right people to fit each aspect of the job (e.g., prospecting or closing).” These specialized sales roles “match an employee’s skills with the job and optimize fit with clients.”

Learning how to read customers, teammates and managers, which Hochstein terms “social selling,” is just as important as more obvious sales skills. In short, sellers who understand differences in personality improve communication and outcomes.

Bryan Hochstein is Associate Professor of Marketing and Bromberg Family Endowed Professor of Marketing at Culverhouse. His main research focus is customer success management, ethics and deviance, sales, and sales management

Can Personality Change?

The panel agreed that personality isn’t fixed. Major life events like career moves, marriage, and parenthood can change people.

Personality also shows up differently depending on the situation. “People don’t operate at one set point,” Harms said. “They shift depending on who they are around and what they are trying to accomplish.”

What This Means for Organizations

The takeaway from the discussion was clear: personality matters, but it’s complex.

For companies, that means looking beyond simple personality tests when hiring leaders, building teams carefully, and recognizing how traits show up under stress. Whether in accounting, cybersecurity or sales, understanding personality can help organizations make better decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

As Harms put it, “Anytime people don’t behave in the same way, personality is at play.”