Personality Type in the Workplace Blog

Next time your friendly office robot puts its hand on yours and offers you a piece of professional advice that absolutely nails your emotional state, don’t be shocked. The machine may know your personality better than you know yourself—and all from looking into your eyes.

Most people consider having high standards a good thing. Constantly striving for excellence is a sign that you're committed to your job and support others by setting the bar high for their performance as well. You can easily spot a perfectionist, because he's the one who takes extreme care in finishing work, always wants to do more, and is insistent on driving up quality standards.

Everyone likes the security of being in control of their time and their environment, but some people like predictability more than others. Guardian personalities (ESFJ, ISFJ, ESTJ and ISTJ) are hard wired to seek out situations they can control, where they do not feel any risk and where "business as usual" reigns supreme. This preference sounds great on the surface, but it has a habit of binding Sensing-Judgers in imaginary shackles that prevent them from taking on any challenge that might not be successfully overcome.

Meetings bring results and solve problems – theoretically. In practice, they can lead to nothing, waste dozens of labor hours and throw up some of the most idiotic suggestions you've ever heard in your life. And in the end, no one feels responsible for implementing what has been decided. Why do we even bother if there are no motivational or productivity gains to be made? 

The role of the manager is not to change the personalities of her employees to fit into a mold. But inevitably, you will be tasked with managing personalities who are just plain difficult. From the guy with the huge ego who thinks he knows more than you do to the talented loner who refuses to collaborate, some people do not want to be managed - and they may respond poorly to your efforts to do so.

How to react? By adopting one of the responses below.

Every workplace suffers conflict; it's unavoidable. And this being a personality blog, we spend a lot of time blaming it on personality clashes. It's comforting to think that all we have to do to stop conflict is take a personality test, recognize each other's quirks and foibles, and make sure certain people never work together. Analyzed through the personality lens, workplace conflict doesn't seem like a big deal at all.

We all know of those all-hands sessions where senior management announces the big, corporate goals that will determine the next few months and years. For some, it's energizing to hear about the great vision the organization has set for itself. Everyone should feel like they are contributing to the success of the business, and some personalities – notably Intuitives – get a real buzz when they feel part of something big.

Take care if you think that Feelers are the peacekeepers of the workplace. While they certainly strive to maintain harmony and appear caring and tactful, the fact is: Feelers communicate differently than Thinkers and this can be to their own detriment. Feelers tend to argue less, apologize more, and personalize each and every experience – all of which can undermine the team's success.

Here are five ways that Feelers unwittingly sabotage communication in the workplace – and some tips on what you, as a boss, can do about it.

Birds of a feather flock together, as the aphorism goes, and it's just as true for humans as it is for groups of animals in the wild. We all have a tendency to associate with people of similar personality to ourselves based on our shared attributes. This can affect our social networks. To cut a long story short, most of us have a stable network of contacts who look a lot like ourselves. What we're lacking are challengers, opinion leaders and mentors that can add a little salt to the soup.