MBTI – A Tool To Help Managers Understand Personality

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was developed by an American mother and daughter team, Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers. They based the Indicator on the work of Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist who had studied people’s behaviour for many years and was well known in the field of Personality.

The MBTI provides a useful measure of personality by looking at 8 personality preferences that all people use at different times.  These 8 preferences are organised into 4 bi-polar scales.  When you take the Indicator, the 4 preferences that you identify as most like you (1 from each scale) are combined into what is called a “type”.

In order for you to make the most of your results, it’s important to understand that the MBTI:

• Describes rather than prescribes; it feeds back to you in an organised form the preferences you indicated when answering the questions.
• Describes preferences, not skills or abilities.
• Says that all preferences are equally important.
• Is well documented and researched with hundreds of scientific studies conducted over more than  40 years
• Has a user’s organisation devoted to its continued research and development

 

The MBTI is not just interesting information. It is a very practical management tool that allows you to understand and adjust your style where necessary to get the best out of people. Differing preferences are frequently a source of misunderstanding and miscommunication.

What’s your MBTI Type?

Understanding of type provides us with insight and a useful approach to some of our own and others’ puzzling behaviours. This kind of expanded knowledge can increase our effectiveness – both within ourselves (through greater self-awareness) as well as in our relationships with others. You can use the information gained from the MBTI results to better understand yourself, your motivations, your strengths, potential areas for growth and appreciate differences in others.

 

 

Use the chart above to determine your own MBTI Type, or you can take a free online test here.

Through the lens of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, leaders and managers gain an opportunity to assess themselves and reflect on how their preferences may affect their leadership and management approaches.

 

In The Great Managers® Academy, We use the MBTI to:

• Develop self-awareness
• Identify preferences and areas of strength and weakness resulting from those
• Teach people to understand how to value and work with the preferences of others