Free Paper about Managing Bias in Decision-Making - Personality Assessment

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The emotional intelligence test done using the matrix test and the results are explained under self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. These four concepts describe Emotional intelligence with relation to managing Bias.

Decision-making assessment describes the abilities in the style and type of decisions that an individual can make in relation to managing bias and this is followed by the leadership skills assessment which describes the same.

Managing Bias in Decision-Making - Personality Assessment

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Introduction

Bias in decision-making is a situation where an individual takes actions without measured judgment and in an illogical way. In most cases, biasness in decision making leads to poor decisions, and an organization can miss out on good opportunities. Personality comes in decision making as a style which a person uses to make a decision. The nature of a person plays a huge role in determining whether the approach to decision making is rational or emotional (Lunenburg, 2010). Personality assessment provides a platform that advocates for self-discovery and self-awareness which are components that guide a person in decision making. The more an individual knows more about him/herself, the more perspectives and choices available in decision making. Factoring personality in decision making goes a long way in making a sure sound, and right decisions are made.

Emotional Intelligence Assessment

Emotional intelligence is described as the ability that an individual has when it comes to recognizing his/her emotions, those of others and being able to differentiate between different feelings (Hess &Bacigalupo, 2011). The assessment I chose for EI is the Matrix test which involved a questionnaire with simple questions regarding my emotions and how they affect the way I behave towards people. This assessment will show my ability to make decisions that are unrelated to my emotions. Some of these abilities for good decision making based on emotional intelligence include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. The results of the EI test reflected on these four abilities described below.

Self-awareness is termed as the core of emotional intelligence, and it comprises of emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. It describes how an individual can read and understand emotions, gives practical assessments of the strengths and limitations and the positive sense of his/her worth (Derue, et al, 2011). The critical point in self-awareness is the ability to have essential techniques of self-reflection. The score in this quadrant was 7/10 meaning I am capable of being critically self-reflective. The score also means that I can be able to avoid the fundamental attribution error which is a bias that makes an individual to blame others when things go wrong. There is also a possibility of achieving a higher score and this would involve improving my awareness of the environment around me and the emotions of people.

Self-management allows an individual to know his/her strengths and weaknesses and to develop a positive attitude towards bad situation. It also determines how an individual performs under pressure, the sincerity and openness, the flexibility to the ever-changing environment and the readiness to grab and act on a given opportunity that the individual has. The score in this area was 8/10, and it meant that I can be able to develop persistency and also manage stress during decision making. For instance, I was able to make a composed decision on a group assignment that late and it resulted to handing a complete assignment in time. The group was under pressure and I had to allocate tasks efficiently so as to beat the deadline for submitting the assignment.

Social awareness gives an individual the ability to value and always respond to the needs of other people. It explains the understanding of an individual to the concerns of others which is crucial to emotional intelligence (Appelt, et al, 2011). Social awareness also means that an individual is aware of the problems facing the societies and the effects of a certain decision to the surroundings. The score in this quadrant was 8/10 meaning that I have the ability to accurately read and understand situations while making decisions and this goes a long way in avoiding bias in decision making.

Relationship management describes the kind of engagement that a person has with other stakeholders within an organization. It determines how an individual relates workmates or teammates which also play a part in developing emotional intelligence (Gal, Mrva, &Mesko, 2013). This assessment involved questions on my ability to work in teams, how teamwork influences my decisions and my attitude toward group-based decisions. The score in this quadrant was 9/10 meaning that I was capable of keeping a proper and good relationship with people and make positive impacts on them and the organization. For instance, I was picked as the group leader for my class group and my main objective was to play the part of a leader and at the same time, participate in all group activities. This ensured that I had a more open and good relationship with group members which translates to my relationship management skills.

Emotional intelligence is an important aspect to a decision maker when managing any form of decision making bias. This is because; it influences personal qualities such as relationship management, self-control and even perseverance. Emotional intelligence tests and results are essential as they provide important information that can be used to develop the self-development and self-management of a person.

Decision-Making Assessment

Decision making is a critical component that at times determines the success of an organization. Because of its importance, a decision maker has to exhibit an excellent decision-making style and must also be good in decision making (Bazerman & Moore, 2013). This is important as it would determine how a given organization performs.

The assessment done was to identify my preferred decision-making style and how good my decision making is. On my favorite decision-making style, the test score was a 17/20 which implies that I have a strong preference for rational and intuitive decision-making style. Another result would have meant that I was more of an irrational decision maker and cannot make decisions based on inner feelings. This means that decisions can only be made from factual information and logical analysis (Rogerson, et al, 2011). Overconfidence is one of the common bias in decision making and it involves making a decision based placing too much faith on the knowledge of a person. For instance, as a group leader there are times I could be confident in my knowledge over some topic but this did not keep me from ensuring that all group members were being involved. The results of this test indicate that I can be able to manage this bias since I make decisions based factual information and not inner feelings.

The second test was on how good my decision making is, and the score for the assessment was an 81/90. This means that I have an excellent approach to decision making and understand how to set up the decision-making process so that it can produce many appropriate solutions to a given problem. In managing bias in decision making, the test results indicated that I can be able to overcome the anchoring bias which makes an individual to jump to conclusions very early. The results from the anchoring bias test indicates that I can be able to follow the decision making progress and make the final judgment based on information gained from all through the process.

Leadership Assessment

Leadership is an important aspect when it comes to decision making since it is leaders who set the directions for an organization (Batool, 2013). How an individual makes decisions is primarily determined by the leadership skills that he/she has and the motivation behind these skills.

Leadership skills assessment- The score for this test was 49/60 which meant that my leadership skills are very positive and extraordinary. Positive leadership skills mean that an individual is able to provide a way forward when much needed. Excellent leadership skills enhance an individual's role in an organization in that solutions are always attained regardless of the problem at hand (Mittal & Sindhu, 2012).

Leadership motivation assessment- The score for this assessment was 72/100 which implies quite a strong motivation to lead. Motivation to lead can be as a result of having an actual plan for taking a certain path in decision making. This means that I can be able to manage bias in decision making like gamblers fallacy which is as a result of expecting results based on past experiences. Strong motivation to lead helps in managing such a bias through setting up proper procedures for decision making for better outcomes.

From the leadership assessment, I noted that the success of a decision making process depends on the leadership aspects of an individual (Radhakrishnan &UdayaSuriyan, 2010). This means that motivation and the leadership skill assist in the management of some bias in decision making. Therefore, how an individual manages bias in decision making depends on the level of leadership motivation and skills that he/she has.

Conclusion

It is essential to understand that the role of an organization is to see to it that the goals and missions are achieved using the right means. For this to be possible, managing bias in decision making is essential to the success of an organization and this can be based on the three personality assessments discussed in this essay. Bias in decision making has proven to be the major cause of failure for most decision makers in organizations. These three aspects evaluate an individual on how well he/she is best suited to make decisions in an organization. The assessments help in providing a scope of the individual's strengths and how well they can be improved to remove bias in decision-making processes in an organization.

References

Appelt, K. C., Milch, K. F., Handgraaf, M. J., & Weber, E. U. (2011). The decision making individual differences inventory and guidelines for the study of individual differences in judgment and decision-making research. Judgment and Decision Making.

Batool, B. (2013). Emotional intelligence and effective leadership. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 4(3), 84-94.

Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, D. A. (2013). Judgment in managerial decision making (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 13: 9781118065709

Blanchette, I., & Richards, A. (2010). The influence of affect on higher level cognition: A review of research on interpretation, judgement, decision making and reasoning. Cognition &Emotion, 24(4), 561-595.

Derue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N. E. D., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and metaanalytic test of their relative validity. Personnel psychology, 64(1), 7-52.

Gal, P., Mrva, M., &Mesko, M. (2013). Heuristics, biases, and traps in managerial decision-making. ACTA UniversitatisAgriculturae et SilviculturaeMednelianaeBrunensis, 235, 2117-2112.

Glockner, A., &Witteman, C. (2010). Beyond dual-process models: A categorisation ofprocesses underlying intuitive judgement and decision making. Thinking &Reasoning, 16(1), 1-25.

Hess, J. D., &Bacigalupo, A. C. (2011). Enhancing decisions and decision-making processes through the application of emotional intelligence skills. Management Decision, 49(5), 710-721.

Lunenburg, F. C. (2010, September). THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS. In National...