Have you ever heard of personality type indicator tests? Several years ago, I worked for a company that took a unique approach to training their employees. They had an extensive human relations training program for all company management. After working for the company for a few months, I attended a series of classes to learn and understand personality type indicator tests. I attended two classes that were dedicated to the “True Colors” and Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality type indicator tests.
What is a personality type indicator test?
A personality type indicator test is a questionnaire or other standardized instrument designed to reveal aspects of an individual’s character or psychological makeup. The first personality type indicator tests were developed in the early 20th century and were intended to ease the process of personnel selection, particularly in the armed forces. Since the early efforts of these tests, a wide variety of personality type indicator tests have been developed, notably the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the MMPI, and a number of tests based on the Five Factor Model of personality. Today, personality type indicator tests are used in a range of contexts, including individual and relationship counseling, career planning, and employee selection and development. (Wikipedia.org)
The purpose of personality type indicator tests is to explain the thought and action process of people with different backgrounds or genetic makeups. The tests usually categorize people. Some of the categories include: introvert vs extravert, leader vs follower, peacemaker vs aggressor, etc. These tests are designed to help leaders know how to work successfully with people of all different backgrounds.
Differences Between Each Personality Type Indicator Test
Terminology Each personality type indicator test is different. Although many of the tests use the same words for the classification types, the words/colors have different meanings. For example, there are different definitions of introvert and extravert depending on the test you take. One personality type indicator test defines an introvert as someone that gets their energy from being by themselves while extraverts get their energy from being around others. Another personality type indicator test defines an introvert as someone that wants to have the least amount of human interaction as possible with the extrovert being the social butterfly.
Classifications In addition to the various terms used to describe the personality types, each personality type indicator test looks at a different angle of a person. Some of the tests look specifically at how people view the world (thought oriented), while others look at how people approach and act in different situations (action oriented).
Personality type Indicator Test Benefits
The purpose of personality type indicator tests is to help identify how you think and respond so you can be a better leader. They are also aimed at helping you understand how others think and act. By knowing how others think, you can more effectively work with them so you are both successful. For example, knowing who are introverts and extraverts will help you to understand why they act the way they do in different settings like large group meetings, public speaking events, large conventions, etc.
One important factor to remember is that personality type indicator test results don’t necessarily determine that one person will be more successful than others, they just help you understand how people tend to think and react to given situations. People are fully capable of acting outside their “determined personality type”.
Conclusion
With so many different types of people in the work force, being a leader can be quite a challenge. As a leader, you are required to work with people from all backgrounds. Some may think exactly like you while others may think completely different from you. Personality type indicator tests are not perfectly accurate, but they are very useful for getting a general understanding of how different people think with different backgrounds.
What personality type indicator tests have taken? How have you benefited from personality type indicator tests? What benefits have you seen from these tests? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Hi Brandon,
As a psychologist working in organisations, there is great benefit to be realised from doing a personality test – due to the insights you gain, not only about your own preferred style of working, but how you differ from others – and therefore, as a leader, how your expectations of others may not align with their preferred style. The difficult thing, as with most developmental activities – is keeping the information and insights alive as you go about leading your team week after week.
Interestingly, research shows that extraversion is actually a predictor for leadership! Fantastic for a leader – but how about for your introverted followers? I came across this interesting blog post – which my introverted manager husband loved – http://www.lisapetrilli.com/2012/03/14/7-facts-extroverts-should-know-about-introverts-in-business/ – so I recommend it for anyone in business to read it to better understand the differences in the way people think.
To be honest – you don’t really need a personality test to understand people – if you’re willing to pay attention, keep the lines of communication open, and recognise that not everyone is the same – you’re halfway there. However, a personality test can be a powerful tool to have those conversations, and discuss with your people how they may see things differently, have a different style of working, and even more importantly – how to appreciate and maximise these differences to build a well-rounded team.
One of the team tests that I’ve found in my work that is simple and easy to use – is the Neethling Brain Instrument, or another version of this tool, the Hermann Brain Dominance Inventory – a fun and interesting way to learn more about others.
Cheers,
Helen.
Helen,
You make a lot of good points. Their is a lot that you can learn about people just by watching them and how they behave towards others. One useful thing with the personality tests is that if you figure out what personality type a person is, you will have a good idea how they will respond to different situations without having to see people go through them. For instance, if you know someone is an extravert and give them an assignment that would require them to be by themselves for an extended period of time, you would be able to identify challenges before they arise. You could also put things in place to help the extravert interact with people.
I follow Lisa Petrilli’s blog regularly and I really like the post that you mentioned. It is a great post.
I will definitely look into the Neething Brain Instrument. I have not heard of that one before.
Thanks again for your great comments!
The NBI is not a psychometrically-valid instrument. Neethling claims to have validated against the Myers-Briggs (MBTI)… another instrument that has never been sufficiently validated with performance data. Does the NBI predict anything? We don’t know. We have no idea how much of the variance in performance (of any time) it accounts for, if any. In fact, we have no idea if it accounts for any variance in ANY other variable. Is it possible that it could be validated? I suppose… if it measures important constructs. The constructs that Neethling himself offers, however, seem rather irrelevant, as they have no theoretical basis. Essentially, this instrument appears to be cooked up by Neethling as a fun, little tool that you can use to understand people. To be a bit blunt… so is astrology, and it is a far richer, more-developed approach… and probably no less valid than the NBI.
Simply put: There is no theoretical basis whatsoever for the NBI.
The best-evidenced theory of personality that we have is McCrae and Costa’s Five-Factor Model (FFM). Traditionally, the best instrument for measuring the five factors of personality has been the NEO PI-R. Recently, however, Dr. Fritz Drasgow (of University of Illinois) and two of his former students (Dr. Stephen Stark and Dr. Oleksandr “Sasha” Chernyshenko) developed an instrument known as TAPAS…. or “Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System” that I feel has a number of advantages over the NEO. First, it seems to be a more valid predictor of core performance. Second, it is less prone to “faking good”. That is: On the NEO, it is relatively easy to figure out the more socially acceptable answer. TAPAS uses a forced choice approach to measurement that is fairly fake proof.
To illustrate why TAPAS is the superior instrument in this regard: A standard personality test might offer you an item with a statement like “I get along well with others”, and you respond by choosing your level of agreement with that statement (through the use of a five-point Likert scale). It is pretty easy to figure out that you should choose “strongly agree”, in this case. If you answer “strongly disagree”, you have just hurt your chances of getting the job. On the other hand… if you were forced to choose which of the following two statements best describes you, which would you choose?: “I keep my personal space orderly” or “I get along well with others”. Either way, they are both potentially desirable responses. TAPAS uses this latter ipsative forced-choice (FC) approach that makes faking virtually impossible. After answering a certain number of questions, TAPAS can eventually place the individual on each of the five factors.
TAPAS is in use by the armed services and has been recently licensed to ETS (Educational Testing Service), with the aim of getting the public sector to use it. You can read a technical report here, if you would like:
http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA564422
Or you could simply read Dr. Drasgow’s own description of TAPAS:
http://drasgowassessments.com/Assessments.aspx
I think the key here is the following: Whichever tool you use… MAKE SURE THAT IT IS VALID! You want a tool that is “construct valid”… is consistent and reliable… that predicts well… and is as unbiased as possible. Plus, you want an instrument that is not prone to faking. I feel TAPAS is best in class… all things considered.
The NBI is fun… like the Myers-Briggs… but fun does not necessarily equal good science.
Of course, the tricky thing is… whether you subscribe to the FFM or HEXACO (Lee and Ashton’s six-factor model)… you have to understand the factors and have a sense of how the factors might relate to a given situation. For example, it is fair to hypothesize that “agreeableness” is an important personality trait for a customer service representative. “Extraversion” and “emotional stability” probably are, too. However, is “conscientiousness” critical? “Conscientiousness” tends to be important in nearly every job family, but I would imagine that it is relatively less important for customer service reps than it is for accountants.
If you are looking to simply “type” people, you are losing the rich data that you get from properly measuring and considering orthogonal factors of personality. Typing is convenient, but it simply is not realistic. Laypeople create types because it is easier to categorize than it is to properly regard people in the full richness of their personality. However, psychologists carry an important credential because they are expected to understand the processes of the mind better than laypeople… and, in many cases, this means putting lay theories to the test.
I cannot say there is no validity to Jungian typology for example (or Neethling’s types)… but I feel that I CAN say that, so far, there is really no sound theoretical basis nor is there any evidence that they really predict anything. Therefore, I cannot recommend their use.
While Wikipedia is not a great source for scientific information, you might do well to review the Wiki entry for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (and particularly the sections on the Big Five, validity, reliability and utility):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator
You will note that the I-O, personality, social and cognitive psych communities have little interest in the MBTI… and that most of the interest comes from ed psych and clinical/counseling communities. Psychometricians generally regard it as a poor measure. I feel that, if the NBI were explored similarly by the various subfields, you would see a slightly different pattern. NONE of the academic subfields would support its use… though some practitioners might. However, you will also find that many practitioners will employ anything that is easy to use, is fun and does not require much knowledge of recent theory.
I’ve worked with a number of leadership teams who have seen the value in learning more about the different personality types on their teams and agree that there are some great tools out there – MBTI, SDI, Insights to name a few.
The challenge as I see it is to find ways to really utilise the awareness gained from these tools in the team’s ongoing activities. All too often, there are many ‘aha’ moments and personal commitments to respect individual differences made during an initial personality profiling workshop, but these good intentions often disappear shortly afterwards as ‘be like me’ spectacles are put firmly back in place!
For these tests to provide the return on investment they can offer a leadership team, there needs to be a lot more ownership for making real behaviour change following completion of the questionnaire. Sadly, these kinds of exercises are sometimes completed as a way of checking the box for team effectiveness and they deliver no real business impact to the team beyond awareness raising.
Welcome Kate! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It is very true that many times the personality tests are good for a short time and then everyone forgets about them and goes back to their old ways. Individuals must make a concerted effort to think about the different types of people and understand their differences, so that there is a return on investment. As a leader, it would be good to do something periodically to remind everyone of the personality types. You could send out a periodic refresher email or have it as a small topic of discussion at some of the regular meetings. In order to get your ROI, you must keep it as something relevant and not just a one-time occurrence. Thanks again for sharing! Brandon
I too have taken a personality test a couple times. I think it is really interesting that extroverts tend to gravitate toward leadership type roles more than introverts. I can agree with that tendency, even while I acknowledge that that I am an introvert.
That said, I think that most of the reason behind extroverts being more inclined to lead then others has to do with the high amount of value that is placed these days on social interaction and an ability to communicate eloquent, quick and simple solutions to issues. Where as an extrovert may be energized by several hours of meetings, an introvert like me is drained because of the continuous random input in the form of information being communicated or desired by way of multiple voices/voice intonation, body language, facial expression, etc. The way an introvert like me deciphers communication is more literal and thus requires a lot of energy and time-intensive logic to understand others and then in turn come up with a solution and a way to communicate that solution effectively to the team.
Because of that dynamic, an introvert like me tends to contribute less, but when they do contribute, it is often very foundational and an ‘out of the box’ solution that can benefit the organization tremendously. To that end too, often an introvert can be savants of a sort if given the opportunity to excel by building on their strengths and minimizing weaknesses. I mentioned some of the weaknesses and strengths, so what can leaders do to tap the unlimited potential of introverts like me? Here is a few suggestions;
1.) Realize that the best thing to do is write the issues that need to be discussed in an email, (or perhaps hard copy memo, but emails are best for me). This gives us time to put the WHOLE issue in our head, break it down into it’s constituent parts and then build it back up to a solution. By attacking things in this way, I have found that I can usually identify where a change is needed in order to accomplish a desired result most efficiently.
2.) To the extent possible written communication (by email) is much more effective then spoken communication. Thoughts can be written down in an environment where intellectual resources are spent on coming up with and organizing an effective solution rather than focusing on trying to understand all the nuances of communication in a direct group conversation.
For instance, an article referenced by one of the comments in your article mentioned the fact that a manager could be open to project updates via email rather then direct in-person conversation. This would enable the Manager to not only have a record that he/she could come back to in order to refresh a memory, but it enables people like me to work more effectively (not causing the group to slow down to wait for an introvert to process the information, come up with a solution and then communicate it to the group).
3.) Lastly, really try to understand what the introvert is trying to say. Often, though the solution can tend to encompass several different issues (that extroverts might be tempted to gloss over), if time is spent on valuing the introverts input by understanding it, the solution will be optimal. Also, by showing that you value their input, it motivates them to be more passionate in the future about coming up with exceptionally creative solutions, perceiving and circumventing problems that other extroverts often don’t see.
PS: Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Mozart, etc. were all arguably introverts and even especially arguably high-functioning Autistics. So if you really want to excel as a leader, learn how to get these people to open up and contribute most effectively!
Welcome Jared!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this blog post! As you pointed out, introverts get their energy from their alone time whereas extroverts get if from being with others. As leaders, you can make more effective use of your employee resources by understanding the tendencies of your employees. As you recognize the individual strengths and weaknesses of your employees, you will be able to help each individual succeed in their specific realm.
I saw a good example of this in college. I had some teachers that were very introverted and answered questions in class completely different than the extroverted teachers. I had one teacher in particular that if you asked him a question in front of the class he would try to explain his answer and many times he would have problems conveying his message because he couldn’t think on the spot very well. When he was given time to think about the question and study it between classes, he would come back with an answer that made complete sense and in many cases, was far more complex than the person asking the question even intended. Once we understood that, we were able to ask questions at a time that allowed us to get the best solution from him as the teacher.
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of those you lead helps you to leverage everyone’s abilities for the best overall production within the organization.
Thanks again for sharing you thoughts Jared!
Thank you again!
Deusa, you are very welcome!
Interesting comments, I have worked with a number of leaders who all had an introvert preference (MBTI) and dealt with their roles very well. We must remember that this is a preference and not an ability.
Welcome Mourijn! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I completely agree with you that when considering personality types you need to think of it as a preference and not an ability. One major fallacy is to think that because you generally fall under a particular type you can’t do or be anything else. You CAN change as you want.
It is really informative post. Thanks buddy.
Welcome Celina!
I am glad that you like the post!
I have a problem with the overall premise of your article but I still think its really informative. I really like your other posts. Keep up the great work. If you can add more video and pictures can be much better. Because they help much clear understanding. 🙂 thanks
HI Brandon- I use a very simple 5 minute test and I have found that it helps people within a department work better together. Companies bring us in to evaluate what is happening within a call center or department and part of that evaluation includes a quick assessment of the personalities along with their skills. If nothing else, it has helped some tough people give grace to co-workers who are different than they are.
Welcome Lori! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I completely agree with you that personality tests can help tough give grace to co-workers. The personality tests can be very useful when used appropriately to give insight into how others think. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
I attended a superb webinar put on by Herrmann International, the home of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument on the topic: When to use assessments, and which one(s) to use. The excellent presenters discussed various assessment categories (personality, psychological, performance, etc). and what to look for in an assessment (self-report, likert scale or forced-choice, readable report). Their premise was that people are so complex and work life so broad, that no one or two assessments can draw an accurate or deep enough picture of a person. I know that when I was developing my assessment, Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio, the psychometricians I was working with said the language in the questions had to be word-neutral, so the assessment-taker would not be swayed to answer in a way s/he thought to be “right” or to select options that seemed a more acceptable way to be. Those of us who create and use assessments to help our clients must present them in a way that leaders can apply them in their dealings with employees. I know that when an individual gets his/her results from Hear! Hear? we ask, “So what does this mean to you and how might it impact that way you work with others?” That’s the real benefit of an assessment. Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
Welcome Marian!
Sorry it has taken me a little while to respond to your comment. You made some very good points about how to put together a good assessment. I have found from personal experience that when the questions are not worded “word-neutral”, it is very hard to get an accurate assessment. Many times when people take the psychometric tests they try to hit a specific target because it will generate the best results for their specific work environment. In many cases, the test taker wants to be the leader, follower, introvert, extrovert, teacher, etc. It is all based on what they feel is the best category to propel their career. Those who take this approach are only trying to game the test for their gain. As you pointed out, however, when you have word-neutral questions the test will be more accurate because it will be harder to game the test. Thank you very much for sharing such a thought provoking comment!
I find personality tests helpful in understanding someone’s “central tendencies.” However they can not measure learned behavior or skill so I question how some Companies use them especially during the employee selection process. I do have an academic background in industrial/organizational psychology and am familiar with multiple assessment instruments. When I speak to other HR professionals I’m surprised how some take the assessment results as absolutes instead of a starting point in asking probing questions during the interview process. For example I’m considered a “ENTP” a big picture person who typically dislikes routine or dealing with details. Someone who is not properly trained may overlook someone like me for a job that requires a high level of detail. Knowing this when I have interviewed for past jobs I made it a point to talk about my learned behavior and skill in dealing with details if they do not ask. I could go on about the “LFC” factor but that’s another blog topic.
Welcome Joseph!
Thank you for sharing your valuable insight. I think that personality tests can be very valuable if used properly. They help to indicate a person’s preferences, but they don’t necessarily indicate how well a person will perform in a given job position. I find it very interesting that companies are using personality tests as part of their screening process. I have never heard of that approach before. It seems like those companies could miss out on valuable people by taking this approach. As you pointed out, people can learn to do things a specific way for a job which helps them to be successful. Thanks again for sharing.
I’ve been fascinated with personality tests every since the first one I took as a leader at NASA. It suddenly hit me that the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) was not a good guide to managing because – hey – not everyone’s like me! Up to that point I had been leading others as I liked to be led. As a biophysicist and martial artist, however, I knew that personality tests that didn’t connect body and mind were only part of the story. Personality doesn’t stop at the neck or start with behaviors out of nowhere. So I was thrilled to meet Betsy Wetzig in the late 90’s and learn about 4 energy patterns in the nervous system that have been known since the 30’s, but only connected to personality recently. Our own work with these patterns has shown them to be 4 clear factors of personality that we measure directlly with the FEBI. All personality tests are more or less a coordinate system and I’m not saying “ours is better than yours.” But if you’re curious about how personality links thorugh the body, you may find the FEBI uniquely powerful.
Welcome Ginny!
Thank you for sharing your insight! I completely agree with you that there is a lot to personality and how it translates into behavior. There are many times when people say that their test is a “one test fits all”. I came across a test the other day some people said was the “end all, be all” of tests. I found that it had many holes because it only had four categories and although the categories identified some personality types, it lacked categories to fit all people. I have not heard of the FEBI test before, but I will look into it based on your recommendation. Thanks for sharing!
I am a great believer in these forms of psychometric testing and have used them to great effect in developing both a leaders and the team’s understanding of each other; if everyone in a team understands how their colleagues learn, process information and react in conflict/under stress I have generally experienced they are a far more cohesive and effective team.
Welcome Thomas,
Thank you for taking the time to read this post and share your comment. I have noticed the same as what you mentioned. When people understand how others on their team work, they can work more effectively together.