Personality development goals at work - A new frontier in personality assessment in organizations

Sep 18, 2026

Personality research and personality assessment are widely used in organizational human resources and talent management to describe employees’ current traits and then select or adapt work roles for a better person–environment fit. A key limitation is that traditional assessments ignore employees’ motivations and abilities to develop their traits. This paper argues for assessing Personality Development Goals (PDGs) at work, complementing “who are you?” with “who do you want to be?”. It summarizes current approaches, reviews PDGs research, and proposes implementation principles and future directions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Personality assessment in organizations: Current practices

Rationale for Personality Development Goals (PDGs) at work

Principles for implementing PDGs and future research directions

Received: 27 February 2024 | Revised: 26 April 2024 | Accepted: 4 June 2024 DOI: 10.1111/ijsa.12490 RES EARCH ARTICLE Personality development goals at work: A new frontier in personality assessment in organizations Sofie Dupré | Bart Wille Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium Correspondence Sofie Dupré, Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University. H. Dunantlaan 2, B‐9000 Gent, Belgium. Email: [Sofie.Dupre@ugent.be](Sofie.Dupre@ugent.be) Abstract There is a long and successful history of personality research in organizational contexts and personality assessments are now widely used in a variety of human resources or talent management interventions. In this tradition, assessment typically involves describing (future) employees' personality profiles, and then using this information to select or adapt work roles to optimally meet employees' traits. Although useful, one limitation of this approach is that it overlooks employees'motivations and abilities to develop themselves in their pursuit of greater person‐ environment fit. This paper therefore argues for a new type of personality assessment that goes beyond the current descriptive approach. Specifically, we propose assessing employees' Personality Development Goals (PDGs) at work to complement the traditional assessment of “who are you?” with information about“who do you want to be?”. We first briefly summarize the current approach to personality assessment and highlight its limitations. Then, we take stock of the research on PDGs in clinical and personality literatures, and outline the reasons for translating this into organizational applications. We end by describing the key principles that should inform the implementation of PDGs at work and propose a number of future research directions to support and advance this practice. KEYWO R DS change goals, development goals, employee development, personality assessment, volitional trait change Practitioner points • Traditional personality assessment is a well‐established tool for tailoring work roles to employees. • Evidence suggests that people also want to develop their traits toward a better fit with their environments. • Hence, personality assessment (“who are you?”) should be complemented by personality development goals (PDGs) assessment (“who do you want to be?”) . • Adopting such assessment is crucial for organizations amid recent challenges that call for development‐oriented strategies. • Assessments need to ensure accurate measurement of development goals in both change directions. Int J Sel Assess. 2025;33:e12490 . [https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12490](https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12490) [wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ijsa](wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ijsa) © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1 of 11 2 of 11 DUPRÉ and WILLE 1 | INTRODUCTION Personality assessment is now firmly established in multiple areas of human resources or talent management, including (but not limited to) employee selection, coaching and development, and career planning. In each of these applications, personality assessment tools aim to provide an accurate picture of (future) employees' current traits, as for instance defined by the Five‐Factor or HEXACO models (Ashton et al., 2014; John, 2021) . These descriptive personality profiles are subsequently used as a basis for further decision‐making and/or career development purposes, and the validity of this approach is well‐supported by a vast and still growing knowledge base of studies linking trait scores to a range of desirable work outcomes, including job performance (e.g., Barrick et al., 2001; Wilmot & Ones, 2019) and work role satisfaction (Judge et al., 2002) . Despite the significant merits of this form of personality assessment in organizational contexts (for an excellent discussion, see for instance Ones et al., 2007), one serious shortcoming i

FAQs

What does the paper propose as a new approach to personality assessment at work?

It proposes assessing employees’ Personality Development Goals (PDGs) at work to complement traditional trait-based assessment.

What limitation does the paper identify in the traditional descriptive approach?

The approach overlooks employees’ motivations and abilities to develop their traits toward greater person–environment fit.

How does the proposed PDGs assessment extend the “who are you?” model?

It adds “who do you want to be?” by capturing development-oriented goals alongside current trait profiles.

Sep 18, 2026

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