Character traits are the specific components of your personality, behavior, attitude, and ethics. To put it simply, character traits are what make you, you.
From portraying who you are as a person to depicting your core values and morals, character traits do it all. These aspects of our personality are unique to each individual and are most readily expressed using descriptive adjectives.
One common way of figuring out your strongest character traits is by asking yourself how your friends would describe you. Uncovering your true character traits is the first step in using your personal and professional qualities to achieve success at work.
To help you become a more successful professional, we’ve rounded up the top 15 character traits for workplace advancement and specific ways you can portray each of these personal and professional characteristics on the job.
Here are some of the best personality traits for career achievement:
Being capable is all about showing your ability to efficiently and effectively complete tasks and go above and beyond what’s asked of you at work. Accomplishing daily tasks, reaching corporate goals, bringing on new clients, or generating new ideas to expand your company’s profitability and overall success rates are all great ways of portraying your professional capabilities.How to portray this character trait:
Confidence encompasses everything from what you wear and how you carry yourself at work to your professional relationships with employees and how you go about presenting new ideas or projects in your role. If you’re looking to launch your career or even change career paths, job interviews are great opportunities for you to portray your confidence. Dressing professionally, standing tall, keeping eye contact, and clearly articulating your interview answers will ensure you come across as a confident and poised applicant. Alternatively, if you’re already established in your career and looking for ways to improve your confidence levels at work, try focusing on your professional strengths and set goals for yourself to go outside your comfort zone and learn new skills. Making sure you’re prepared for meetings, clear on your views, and comfortable discussing complex ideas with colleagues will help you emulate confidence.How to portray this character trait:
Nowadays, most jobs require some form of teamwork and cooperation. On that coin, showcasing your cooperative character traits can be essential to your career and professional growth. Some of the best ways of showcasing your cooperative personality at work include offering to mentor or assist employees, planning team meetings to discuss common goals, or, if on a job interview, recounting a specific instance in which you collaborated or coordinated with another employee to reach a specific result or objective.How to portray this character trait:
When it comes to portraying your creativity at work, try to focus on things that make you unique from your peers. Creativity is all about originality and thinking outside the box, so there’s no one right or wrong way to display it. For example, if you’re a graphic designer, being creative at work might mean experimenting with different color pallets or using new cutting-edge tools and computer programs to create interesting and eye-catching visuals. However, if you’re on the opposite end of the artistic occupation spectrum, say an accountant, being creative at work might translate to creating simplified graphs to explain complex ideas to your clients or using unique formulas to calculate financial risk.How to portray this character trait:
Arriving to work on time and staying until your shift ends, completing tasks and projects quickly and accurately, being accountable, organized, and responsible, going the extra mile to get your work done, and being consistent are all great ways of illustrating your dependability in the workplace.How to portray this character trait:
Being diligent and hardworking can look different for different people depending on their specific work style and job. Generally speaking, some of the best ways to portray your diligence are staying organized, prioritizing tasks, using your time effectively, meeting deadlines, staying focused, completing projects, and reaching specific goals.How to portray this character trait:
Staying enthusiastic, open to trying new things, and expanding your skillset are great ways of portraying your eagerness to get the job done.How to portray this character trait:
Being open-minded, staying calm when things don’t go as they were initially intended to, adapting to new ideas, and taking steps to accommodate coworkers and customers are all great ways of illustrating your flexible personality.How to portray this character trait:
Being friendly at work is as simple as being nice, kind, and considerate towards coworkers, clients, and customers. To portray your friendly personality, you could smile and greet your colleagues as they pass you in the hall, offer to take a new coworker out to lunch or coffee, or ask a customer how their day is going.How to portray this character trait:
With honesty, you must practice it every day and in every situation. Even a little white lie has no place at the office because even the smallest breach of trust can be detrimental to your career. Being honest is all about establishing a positive and trustworthy reputation. Some of the best ways of portraying your honest personality are keeping your commitments, maintaining respectful relationships with your coworkers, staying focused on your work, taking responsibility, and immediately discussing any mistakes you make with your supervisor.How to portray this character trait:
Completing tasks with little direction, taking the initiative, suggesting new ideas to improve company practices, and becoming self-aware of your work are all great ways of portraying independence on the job.How to portray this character trait:
Expanding your skillset, questioning new ideas, clearly understanding complex ideas within your field of expertise, and being capable of making important decisions based on logic and analytical reasoning are great ways of illustrating your logical personality.How to portray this character trait:
Perhaps the easiest way of portraying your organized and systematic personality is by keeping a clean desk and a tidy workstation. Being organized is especially important for professionals employed in office settings. If you work as an administrative assistant, for example, you could showcase your organization by keeping detailed notes of any phone messages you receive, creating a mail distribution system, scanning any checks or financial documents, and carefully filing paperwork both in the office and electronically.How to portray this character trait:
Depending on what industry you work in, being skillful can look like several different things. Generally speaking, completing your specific roles and responsibilities to the best of your ability while actively working to improve when necessary is a great way of depicting your skillful personal traits. For a baker, being skillful might look like decorating wedding cakes using various icings or chocolates. At the same time, a painter might be considered skillful if they have a collection of positive references applauding them for their trim work and attention to detail.How to portray this character trait:
You can display conscientiousness in every area of your personal and professional life by honoring rules and boundaries, respecting others, and consistently doing the right thing, even if it’s to your own disadvantage. Self-discipline is also an important aspect of conscientiousness, so do the little things such as checking your work for errors before submitting it, maintaining a clean workspace so you don’t bother your coworkers, and keeping your commitments.How to portray this character trait:
You can display your determination by working to find solutions rather than passing the buck or giving up on an issue. This doesn’t mean you don’t ask for help, but it does mean that you don’t make excuses just to avoid some extra work. You can also show determination by showing up to work on time every day, using creativity to solve problems, and consistently meeting your goals.
To help you put your best foot forward at work, here’s a complete list of other leading personality traits to reach career success and advancement:
Character traits are important in the workplace because they play a significant role in finding success in the workplace and realizing your biggest professional goals.
Time and time again, research proves that personality, specifically character traits, is vital in determining how fast an individual achieves professional growth, how much money a professional earns, and at what point they’ll reach the pinnacle of their career.
Professionals who are conscientious, emotionally stable, and optimistic, for example, have been proven to have higher rates of career success than those who are pessimistic, frustrated, fearful, worrisome, anxious, or moody.
No matter where you are in your career, personality traits matter more than you might think.
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Articles In Guide Personality Traits
Elsie is an experienced writer, reporter, and content creator. As a leader in her field, Elsie is best known for her work as a Reporter for The Southampton Press, but she can also be credited with contributions to Long Island Pulse Magazine and Hamptons Online. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Stony Brook University and currently resides in Franklin, Tennessee.
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