GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

Mr Citizen shows a preference towards focusing on the external world of people, things and activities.

The perception of meanings, patterns, relationships and possibilities through the use of insight or a "sixth sense" is rated as important by Mr Citizen. Rather than focusing mainly on tangible things, he emphasises possibilities. People with this preference have and use their intuition.

Decisions that are made by him typically rely on logic and objectivity. The outcome is generally impersonal.

A planned and orderly life is important to him and he enjoys controlling events.

Mr Citizen likes to take charge and to create structure and direction for himself and for others. This applies particularly when situations are changing and ambiguous. Designing strategies to achieve goals is one of his strengths. When making plans, his focus is broad and on necessary actions. Persistent, assertive and tough-minded, he his able to meet challenges. His excellent analytical and strategic thinking skills make him good at organising resources. Further, he is critical, theoretical, objective and fair. A controlled person himself, he enjoys power, control and leadership. Whatever he does should fit into his broader strategy and scheme of things.

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

The conceptual approach shown by Mr Citizen is as follows:

i) He takes new ideas into consideration, evaluating them in terms of his objectives.

ii) He likes things to fit in with his conceptualisation of how things ought to be.

ACTION ORIENTATION

He has a strong drive towards action and may be impatient when things do not happen fast enough. He will often take charge in order to get things moving.

DECISION MAKING

Mr Citizen can see interrelationships between systems and the short- and long-term implications of events and behaviours. He considers both the long- and the short-term implications of his decisions, and he honours his decisions.

He is a decisive person who makes decisions very quickly, but may at times need to take more information and the feelings and needs of others into account to a greater extent. He is comfortable making tough decisions, including those which could have a negative impact on others.

PROBLEM SOLVING

Mr Citizen does not rely on the past when solving problems, but instead focuses on the future and on new solutions. The past is seen as useful only in that it provides lessons that make it possible to avoid errors made in the past. He gets impatient with himself when he makes mistakes and believes that he must learn quickly from them so that errors are not repeated. He feels humiliated if other people see that he has made a mistake, especially if it involves an error of logic.

In solving a problem, he uses logic and objective analysis, and looks for solutions that will work. He may also take the expedient route although some costs may be involved.

APPROACH TO WORK

Mr Citizen's approach to work is as follows:

i) With his strategic focus, he requires that anything he does should fit into his broader plan in terms of meeting objectives.

ii) He places a strong emphasis on goals, pursues his objectives with great energy and is task oriented, hard working and expedient.

iii) He sets goals, priorities and deadlines and organises both himself and his resources in order to achieve these. He is always open to ideas that will further his goals.

iv) Although he will sacrifice short- for long-term goals, he takes both into consideration.

v) An ambitious person, he positions himself skilfully to obtain the maximum advantage in terms of advancement. If it will put him in a better position in the future, he is prepared to take a back seat.

vi) As long as the system helps him to achieve his goals, he will work within it.

vii) He may get extremely involved in his job, sometimes to the exclusion of most other things. He identifies strongly with his work.

viii) Finding out about new ideas and evaluating them according to his goals is something he enjoys and is good at.

ix) Where there is inefficiency and uncertainty, he is likely to intervene directly.

x) An extremely competitive person, he likes to be in charge and enjoys having responsibility. He also has strong needs for power and control.

xi) He is logical and decisive.

xii) Because of his efficiency, operations run smoothly.

WORK STANDARDS

He is extremely hard working and sets high standards for himself. However, he will work within the system only so long as fits in with his broader objectives. He is highly efficient, and leaves little room for doubt in his dealings with others.

VALUE ORIENTATION

Mr Citizen's focus is on leading, controlling, organising and obtaining power. He is motivated by power, advancement, organising, structuring and achieving long-term goals.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

Although he is socially sophisticated, he is not aware of other people's needs. As a result he may lack sensitivity. This may seem contradictory and confusing to people who are impressed by his polished style.

COMMUNICATION STYLE

In his interactions with others, he is direct, comfortable with challenging others and assertive.

MANAGEMENT STYLE

A key contribution made by the manager and leader with these characteristics is his ability to conceptualise, design, use his intellect, work with complexity and create models. Both the short- and long-term implications of events and people's actions are considered. Analysing organisations and how they operate is another of his strengths. He is good at seeing the interrelationships between systems, including those between his own system and others. Questioning things, wanting reasons and discovering the principles according to which things operate are all characteristic. This kind of manager enjoys applying his excellent technical knowledge to initiating and pioneering projects and changes, but then loses interest after the design stage of projects and is happy to hand the project over to others. The disadvantage of this is that the projects do not necessarily get implemented in the way that he had intended. He is likely to blame himself rather than others for this. He tends to demonstrate a lack of interest in maintenance, consolidation or sorting out other people's errors.

Mr Citizen has very high and at times unrealistic expectations of himself and of others and is very impatient with his own and other people's mistakes. He also dislikes things being repeated. He sticks firmly to his principles.

There is a tendency for him to give more negative than positive feedback, even though he may have an intellectual understanding of the importance of providing positive feedback and support of people. Hence, he needs to learn to give his staff more positive feedback and recognition. A person with these characteristics is often perceived as being cold and distant and work colleagues may be reluctant to talk to him about their home lives and personal matters because of his businesslike approach. He lacks an awareness of other people's feelings and may seem unapproachable. His emphasis on intellectualism and his high expectations may convey an attitude of intellectual superiority that is further aggravated by his impatience with mistakes.

Although he is often aware of power structures and balances, this tends to be in an impersonal way. He is seldom competitive, does not minimise the contribution of others and does not feel a need to get ahead at the expense of others.

Mr Citizen places a very strong emphasis on leading others and finds it difficult to be a member of a team or a follower. Thus, he actively seeks out positions of leadership. He takes charge quickly and bases decisions on logic. His action oriented, quick, decisive, tough-minded, direct approach assists him in this. Extending his span of control in terms of staff and functional areas is important to him, and he likes to be involved in a variety of projects, especially long-term and complex ones. He has a vision of what he wants and goes out to get it.

He may involve others by asking them questions in order to improve either his own knowledge and understanding or that of others. He is prepared to make tough and unpopular decisions.

TEAM FUNCTIONING

Because of his strong desire to lead, he has difficulty being a member of a group of which he is not the leader. He is also very assertive, and may at times be perceived as domineering. He is aware of the dynamics and power differences between people and will try to use these to his advantage.

AS A SUBORDINATE

The person managing a person with this profile needs to be aware that he has a need to lead. Unless his superiors can demonstrate competence, he may clash with them.

IDEAL WORKING CONDITIONS

Mr Citizen likes a task oriented environment where people and systems are efficient. His colleagues should be tough-minded, independent and able to work with complex organisational issues. He needs challenges and direct reward for his efforts.

STRATEGIC ORIENTATION

Mr Citizen's emphasis is on the strategic rather than the operational.

DEALING WITH CHANGE

Mr Citizen's strategies are long-term and he is strongly goal directed. Consequently he may be upset if plans change.

LEARNING STYLE

Optimum conditions and situations for learning are as follows:

i) Even if the subject content covers the past, he needs to know how it will affect the future.

ii) He enjoys preparing critiques, analysing situations, solving problems and using logical thought.

iii) A variety of methods, such as lectures, debates and group discussions are interesting to him.

iv) Lessons should be well organised.

v) Techniques where the data is clearly organised is preferred.

vi) He enjoys intellectual arguments and examining data from various perspectives.

vii) Direct feedback is useful to him as he sees it as an opportunity to improve, rather than being upset by it. However, criticism of his competence may be difficult for him to accept.

viii) He enjoys a challenge and is good at organising himself to meet challenges.

ix) He likes to better his own standards by achieving his goals in less time or using less energy.

x) He views education as a means to advancement.

VOCATIONAL PREFERENCES

Preferred careers are those requiring tough-mindedness, the ability to work towards goals, a broad overall view, logic and analytical ability. Further, his career should offer the opportunity for him to organise himself and others and to be in charge.

WEAKNESSES

When under pressure, certain of his strengths may be over- utilised and his weaknesses highlighted. When this happens, a number of problems may occur. These, together with some possible ways of addressing them, are presented below:

i) He may make decisions and judgements too quickly and start acting on them immediately. When things do not go according to plan, he may be inflexible and react by over-structuring and imposing too much control. He could benefit from keeping the overall goal in mind and realising that there may be several different ways of achieving it, some of which may be better than the original method. It could also be useful for him to listen more carefully to others, to take their needs into account and to actively obtain people's commitment to his plans.

ii) Because he may focus too intently on long-term goals, he may miss facts that are relevant to the current situation. This may also happen because of his single-minded pursuit of his goals. This he could remedy by listening to the advice of others and by being more open to new information. In this way, he would be forced to use all available resources before making commitments.

iii) Because he tends to ignore his feelings, these may get out of control, resulting in emotional outbursts in response to small matters. This is particularly likely in situations where he feel that his competency is being questioned. He needs to take note of his feelings and give himself a cooling-off period before responding.

iv) At times he may ignore the needs of others. He could benefit from learning to be more sensitive to the needs of others and to take them into consideration when making plans and determining strategy. This is particularly necessary with people who are less powerful than he is.