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25 March 2003
Feedback from Jennifer Osborn
I really enjoyed last week's SALIN session "Do
you speak my language?" (communication, personality types and the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) ... but then, I would, wouldn't I? :)
As an ENFP who is "energised by interacting with people", likes to
talk about ideas and do lots of networking, this kind of workshop
was perfect for me! (although it was mildly disconcerting to
discover that my personality "type" as a librarian suits me for work
as a "Children's Librarian" when I've been very happily working in
academic libraries for a number of years...)
Okay, that aside, I would like to stress the
view that the MBTI has "SOME value for increasing self-insight, and
for helping people to understand individual differences in
personality types." But because it is "user friendly" and easy to
administer, it gets over-used and over-valued.
Obviously, there are other interesting
personality tests and theories around; for example, one current one
emphasises the "Big Five" personality domains (extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, intellect or
openness) The Myer Briggs is fun to take, and great for helping you
with insights into your own personality and values (which is what we
were doing in the SALIN workshop), but it needs to be seen in
context with other work in this area of psychology.
For an interesting article on "State of the
art: Personality" research, see Sarah Hampson in The Psychologist,
vol. 12 (6) June 1999, 284-288.
Reflections from Benjamin Wheal
At the very enjoyable SALIN "Do You Speak My
Language" Personality-type Workshop the other night I heard several
people speaking as if to equate Extraversion with Leadership. It was
therefore interesting to read the findings of Jim Collins in his
book "From Good to Great" (ISBN 0712676090).
Collins' book concerns a study of large
companies that have continually performed extremely well. Amongst
various organisational factors the research team found that the
successful CEO's consistently had softly spoken, modest, almost
self-effacing personalities (they were also very focussed and
committed to the long-term success of the company, and always ready
to credit their company's successes to the people that they worked
with rather than themselves; interestingly they started off by
recruiting good people before coming up with a big plan). By
contrast, CEO's with "rock star" personalities were not found to be
the most successful leaders. http://www.jimcollins.com/lib/articles/10_01_a.html
(accessed 27/3/03).
Food for thought.
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