Personality Type in the Workplace Blog

Obviously, your personality type has affected your career. For many, it determined what that career would be. It’s common knowledge that most ENTJs prefer to find success by taking on leadership roles and helping to organize projects, whereas an introverted perceiver may be less interested in that type of role. 

But how, specifically, once you land that job you got by taking account of your personality, does it change where you go on the corporate ladder?

As an Introvert, do you find it challenging to share your ideas or thoughts with your boss or team? Have you ever wished that there was an app or guide to help Introverts navigate a relationship with an extraverted boss?

There’s an ebb and flow to navigating a relationship with your boss.  However, work has the potential to become more complicated when the boss has an opposite style from yours.  

I learned this the hard way. 

The path of a startup founder is a difficult one. Part commander, pioneer, and obsessive artist, a founder needs to wear many hats to make his/her vision come true. 

A founder needs to have a combination of stubbornness, charisma, resourcefulness, and single-minded focus to overcome the many difficulties that come with starting a new enterprise.

Professional communication is vital in the business world. Sensing-Judging types -- the SJs of the 16-type personality system -- are adept at communicating important information clearly and concisely, and use it as a tool to move tasks along or educate others.  Analyzing the overall goals of projects, we are quick to spot and fill in any gaps in information and use it to make sound, quick decisions.

In an ideal world, every employee would finish every item on his to-do list without any problems or stress. Back in the real world, the sheer number of things to do is dizzying and there’s only a finite amount of time to get them done. This means that time management—the art of using your time productively, based on the day’s priorities—is one of the most important skills your employees can have.   

Shyness is not the same as introversion, although the two personality traits sometimes overlap. An Introvert needs time alone to recharge after busy work periods and gets mentally drained after spending a lot of time with others. A shy person is much more anxious about the social interaction itself. 

In part one of this series, we analyzed a bit of the history behind how Dr. Meredith Belbin created his team roles, a summary of the three action oriented roles, as well as the Myers-Briggs personality types that complement those roles.

In this article, we will analyze the remaining six roles, as well as personality types that resonate well with them.

As a manager, it’s easy to put your direct reports into boxes. There’s the creative one, the empathetic one, the one who likes autonomy and the one who like clear boundaries and set routines. There’s also another special breed of worker in the world, and that’s the person who has borderline manic levels of productivity yet spends a lot of the time kicking back and doing...well nothing. Someone who is lazy and a hard worker, all at the same time.

How do you manage someone when you’re never quite sure where they’re at? Here are some tips.

Every well-constructed team should have a mix of personalities. Some people like to take the lead and work well with very little supervision. Others need a little extra help but are generally happy to follow the guidelines and detailed planning the manager has set for them. And then there are those who are not inclined to follow the rules at all. If you're in the latter group, you might be a powerhouse of generating ideas, and you might be among the most productive people in your department, but you just have to have flexibility in the way you do things.