Pinpointing personality traits can pay off

Every woman interested in changing jobs, changing careers, changing marital or parental status or increasing her effectiveness - in other words, every woman - needs to get to know herself better.

She needs to:

• Create a "master dream" list, cataloging all of her hopes and dreams.
   
• Determine which aspirations are most important by asking herself, "What do I want to be remembered for?"
   
• Inventory her skills, personality and resources.
   
• Develop an action plan that reflects all of the above.

Until recently, the most difficult and most suspect data to generate was that pertaining to personality. Yet attempts to explain personality and behavior pre-date Western civilization. The ancient Chinese believed the year in which you were born predicted certain personality traits and behavior: people born, for example, in 1952 - the Year of the Dragon - would be strong-willed, passionate and loyal.

The Greeks developed the horoskopos, a diagram of the relative positions of planets and signs of the zodiac at the time of one's birth for use by astrologers in inferring individual character and personality traits and in foretelling events.

More recently, the Type A-Type B paradigm has permeated our pop culture, supposedly helping us understand why some people are hard-driving, hot-tempered and prone to early heart attacks (Type A) while others are easygoing, unflappable and live to be wished Happy Birthday by Willard Scott (Type B).   

My favorite is Gary Larson's formulations of the four personality types:

Type I: The glass is half full!

Type II: The glass is half empty.

Type III: Half full...No! Wait! Half empty!...No, half...What was the question?

Type IV: Hey! I ordered a cheeseburger!

Although we may secretly find these categorizations intriguing, most of us discount the conclusions and predictions.

Yet we sense, consciously or unconsciously, that certain traits often are linked with certain kinds of behavior and that if we could only discover or become familiar with the "real" (fact-based) typology, we would be much better predictors of human behavior and, therefore, much more effective managers, team leaders, board presidents, mothers or individuals.

Good news! A mother-daughter duo - yes, two women - Katharine C. Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, began in the 1920s to develop a methodology and an instrument to assess and understand the implications of personality differences. Based on Jung's "Psychological Types," the model puts forth that each of us has an innate preference for:

• The way we take in information about the world (Sensors vs. Intuitives).
   
• The way we make decisions (Thinkers vs. Feelers).
   
• Whether we focus our attention on the external world of people and events or the internal world of thoughts and ideas (Extroverts vs. Introverts).
   
• The way we live our lives, making decisions quickly and easily or putting off decisions as long as possible as we await more data (Judgers vs. Perceivers).

To give you a flavor for how these four dyads array into personality types, here are descriptions of two of the 16 possible combinations:

• Extroverted (E), Intuitive (N), Feeler (F) and Perceiver (P)
      "The Journalist" - Warmly enthusiastic, high-spirited, ingenious with an uncanny sense of the motivations of others; having a talent for seeing life as exciting drama, full of possibilities for both good and evil.
   
• Introverted (I), Intuitive (N), Thinker (T), and Judger (J)
      "The Scientist" - Skeptical, critical, independent, determined, sometimes stubborn. This is the most confident of all types, focusing on possibilities and the future rather than the past; not likely to succumb to the magic of slogans and not impressed by authority.\

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one of the most reliable, valid and widely used instruments for helping people discover and understand the impact of their own preferred thinking and problem-solving style on their behavior and effectiveness in different situations.

Run, don't walk, to sign up for the next MBTI workshop in your neighborhood and begin to discover the real you.

--

Cowan-Gascoigne is founder and president of The Leadership Co., a Cleveland consulting firm. She was formerly head of the corporate development and public affairs division of the Cleveland Clinic and a consultant with McKinsey & Co.

This article was originally printed in the Women's Work column in the Business section of The Plain Dealer of Sunday, July 31, 1994 and in The Ohio Leisure Leader, August 1994.

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