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Personality@Work

Personality plays a central role in shaping how employees think, feel, and act at work.
Different personality characteristics can be either beneficial or dysfunctional for employees’ motivation, behavior, and well-being. Moreover, how personality unfolds at work can also carry over into the non-work domain. Recently, research on personality at work increasingly considers the mutual interplay between personality and everyday work experiences. 

Our research aims to understand both how personality shapes employees’ work experiences, well-being, and performance, and how, in particular, its more dynamic aspects are shaped by everyday work experiences.

A focus of our research is understanding the phenomenon of perfectionism at work. The work context, with its emphasis on goal attainment, performance appraisals, and performance feedback, is considered a particularly appropriate context to study perfectionism. Consistent with this, individuals most commonly report being perfectionistic in the workplace. Often viewed as a driver of effort and high performance, perfectionism is socially and organizationally rewarded, fostering the belief that its benefits outweigh its costs. 

We examine perfectionism as a double-edged sword for employee well-being, (interpersonal) behavior and leadership, performance, and career development.
Using a variety of methodological approaches, including experimental, longitudinal, and diary studies, we investigate how perfectionism unfolds both at work and in the non-work domain. This includes understanding which dimensions of perfectionism help or hinder employees’ goal attainment, but also how it undermines recovery. We also pay attention to perfectionistic cognitions as state-like manifestations of perfectionism and how seemingly small daily experiences such as appreciation can shape them. Finally, we explore which interventions, such as mindfulness, may help employees manage the dysfunctional aspects of perfectionism at work.

Selected publications:

Kleszewski, E., Wehrt, W., Otto, K., Matick, E. & Kottwitz, M. U. (2025). Opening windows: Effects of an app-based mindfulness intervention on perfectionistic concerns and cross-domain functioning. Journal of Business and Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-025-10033-8

Kleszewski, E., Mohr, M. & Otto, K. (2025). Perfectionism unfolding: The mutual reinforcement of employee perfectionism and work goal attainment and the moderating role of psychological capital. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2025.2508177

Schlegel, L., Kleszewski, E., & Otto, K. (2024). The butterfly effect of appreciation at work: An impulse for perfectionistic cognitions and well-being beyond the workday. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 29(6), 431–444. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000390

Otto, K., Baluku, M., Schaible, A., Oflu, C., Kleszewski, E. (2024). The only way is up? How different facets of employee and supervisor perfectionism help or hinder career development. Psychological Reports. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941241229204

Baluku, M. M., Kawooya, K., Bwambale, J. M., & Otto, K. (2024). Exploring the associations of facets of locus of control and moral potency with job satisfaction and counterproductive work behaviors. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 9(3), 1703-1720. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41042-024-00188-9

Matick, E., Kleszewski, E., & Otto, K. (2023). Far from perfect sleep: A diary study on multidimensional perfectionism in the context of the stressor–detachment model. International Journal of Stress Management, 30(4), 354–365. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000302

Kleszewski, E., & Otto, K. (2023). A matter of needs: Basic need satisfaction as an underlying mechanism between perfectionism and employee well-being. Motivation and Emotion, 47(5), 761-780. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-023-10029-y

Oflu, C., Baluku, M. M., & Otto, K. (2022). Career success in the University setting: Examining the role of narcissism facets. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues, 41(2), 877–887. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00614-6

Otto K., Geibel H.V., & Kleszewski E. (2021) “Perfect leader, perfect leadership?” Linking leaders’ perfectionism to monitoring, transformational, and servant leadership behavior. Frontiers in Psychology. 12:657394. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.657394

Kleszewski, E. & Otto, K. (2020). The perfect colleague? Multidimensional perfectionism and indicators of social disconnection in the workplace. Personality and Individual Differences, 162: 110016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110016