Earlier in the year, UNB Counselling Services asked us to fill out a personality test online that would be used at a later date in order to help the MBA students better understand themselves and give them direction in terms of what careers they are searching for. It has been over a month since we have taken the online tests. Now an entire module concerning the results and our career path has begun to take root.
Erin Crossland began our seminar by explaining some critical facts about personality types using a plethora of handouts as an aid to summarize information. In short order, we were given a list of the four scales used to sort out our personalities. We were then told to fill out a sheet as a means of guessing where we stood on those four scales. Each scale is given weight in the form of a preference score, which has a maximum value of 70. Theoretically if you were exactly in the middle of the scale then you would equally exhibit traits of both categories on the scale. The first scale forces a choice between extraversion characteristics and introversion characteristics. Extraverts get their energy by using outside factors such as events or people. Introverts get their energy from within using concepts such as ideas, pictures, and memories. The second scale involved sensing and intuition. Sensors pay attention to physical reality while people who use the intuition side of the scale get most of their details from deriving the meaning behind things and their patterns. The third scale separates thinking and feeling. Thinkers care more about the logic behind a situation while feelers care about the emotional consequences of a decision or situation. The last scale involved judging and perceiving. People who use judging crave order and plan things out methodically. People who use perceiving are flexible and generally dislike planning. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test takes your answers to various questions and places you on these scales at certain preference scores.
My end result was a ENTJ type personality. It means that I scored higher on extraversion, intuition, thinking, and judging than on any other category. ENTJ types are outgoing, logical, and decisive. They lead by using concepts and excel at setting the appropriate goals for others. ENTJs have the tendency to take control of situations, using their intuition to drive them and aid in setting their goals. They are very logical to the point where we almost have a reverence for impersonal logic, as harsh and cold as that may be. I’d like to think that it’s not so much that we ignore other peoples’ emotions or that we’re incapable of sensing them in certain situations, but rather that we recognize them and tend to make the most logical decision anyway since it makes the most sense strategically. This may seem like a strength, and the ability to put feelings aside and focus on logic for a moment is indeed a strength, but it can be a great weakness too. One of the sheets that I was given lists this as a challenge my personality type must overcome. It explains, “You may make decisions based on logic or what you think you should do and neglect what is most important to you.” This particular quote resonated with me on a personal level as most of the mistakes I believe I’ve made in my life have more than likely been for this reason. The sacrifice of everything else for the sake of making the “best” decision. However, the personality report offers a solution: “Ask yourself what is truly important in the long term and whether this decision promotes that or is simply the most logical choice.” Simply put, maybe the most logical choice isn’t always the best choice for me.
The implications of this personality test can apply in a scholastic sense as well. In the MBA program we do a lot of group work. Naturally, being in a management program, we all tend to want to wrestle control from other people. The trick is striking a compromise. If we can better know ourselves and communicate that to others in a better way, perhaps we can work better together in groups by knowing what is most important to the people in each group. Certainly an understanding of our own personalities can aid us in knowing where to focus our energies and knowing which challenges may lie ahead for us.
The concept of the module and the seminar is extremely interesting. People naturally assume they know themselves implicitly. Sometimes you need to see something official written on paper to really drive a few of those ideas to the forefront in your mind. The knowledge that is gained from this process will help in a myriad of matters – not just in the MBA program or work. It helps in life in general. Whether that facet is family, friendship, romance, or any other type of relationship, knowing who you are and what you place importance on as a person aids you in discovering your strengths and weaknesses. As a true ENTJ, I like to know my strengths and weaknesses in order to form the correct strategy for myself. Knowing one of my biggest weaknesses quoted above, I can take that strategic view and ingest a little more emotion and feeling into it so that I not only do what’s right to satisfy the logical part of the situation at hand but also to ensure that I am satisfied emotionally from it as well. I guess it’s sometimes easier to be aware of everything else around you, be inward thinking, and still not take the action that satisfies your emotional needs. For me, that is the takeaway from this seminar: another option to cover for a perceived weakness and to turn that weakness into a great strength.
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