12. Personal Styles and Meyers-Briggs (MBTI)

Human nature: each person is in some way:

• Like all other people

• Like no other person

• More like some people than others

Personal style (MBTI)

• Enduring patterns of a person’s behavior

• Is not psychoanalysis

• Measures preferences, not intellect or skills

• Each preference is equally important

• Based on Carl Jung and has been researched for over forty years

• Is an inventory, not a test

• Is self-validated

Objective: build on natural personal preferences and enhance ability to understand and adapt to others

Why use Meyers-briggs (MBTI)?

• Enhances versatility: forces thinking and triggers insights about self and others

• Provides perspective to complex human issues

• Creates communications that would not take place and provides a “shorthand language for communicating

• Often better than nothing for people who don't know each other

Why not use MBTI?

• it is too simple to apply to a specific situation

• Stereotypes can be reinforced and misused

• It can be a substitute for building genuine knowledge about yourself or others

Four scales (refer to the introduction to type book

• How energized:

  • Extroversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)

• How gather information:

  • Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)

• How make decisions:

  • Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)

• Preferred way of living:

  • Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

Tony is an ENFP: Never underestimate his ability and/or desire to:

• Be reflective and introspective (I)

• Sense people (S)

• Be analytical and logical (T)

• Follow through on things important to me (J)

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