Dominance: You are action oriented and concentrate on results. You don’t care for a lot of in-depth analyzing since you feel it bogs down the decision-making process.

Influence: You enjoy communicating and connecting with others. The power of persuasion is your favorite tool for getting other people to do what you want.

Steadiness: Stability is critical for your sense of wellbeing. You need to have a reliable system in place or changes tend to overwhelm you.

Conscientiousness: You need to take your time and think every situation through logically. You can’t stand it when people make careless errors.

Influence (being a people person) is a very strong plus for an office manager. You must be comfortable communicating with others and good at resolving conflicts or your job will always stress you out. You also need to feel OK with authority and decision making, so a strong dash of Dominance is helpful. Of course, that can go too far and become problematic if you simply order people around without explaining why.

As a leader, you can’t be inflexible or uncomfortable with change. You must be improvement oriented and not become satisfied with the status quo. So, Steadiness probably isn’t the best predominant trait for you. However, you should recognize that some of your employees may operate in this mode. In that case, you may need to introduce changes gradually so they don’t become overwhelmed.

Conscientiousness would seem to be a perfect personality trait for a medical office manager. After all, there are a hundred tiny details that go into managing a successful practice. But excessive Conscientiousness can actually be a drawback. Attention to detail is great; but perfectionism has to go – otherwise you will not be able to delegate effectively. You also need to take it in stride when employees screw up occasionally.

This is just one way of looking at the personality picture. What traits do you see as essential for an OM?

 
Share

One Response to “Personality Traits of a Successful Office Manager”

 Rebecca Morehead says:
2010/04/27 at 2:16 am
Great article. I would highlight on the ability to be flexible. In these ever changing times, it is important that OMs and PMs think outside of the medical box of doing things. Taking on newer methods such as implementing coaching for themselves and team members, consulting and even mentorship into their practice is a start out of the practice maze.