Insight Personality Types at Work

Workplaces are full of a diverse selection of people with personalities that differ considerably. While every person has their own way of expressing their personality, there are four main types that the majority of the world falls into. Knowing these types can benefit you on the job in many ways.

Benefits of Understanding Personality Types
Knowing and understanding the various personality types offers many benefits. These benefits are not only useful in the workplace but can also help you navigate the world outside of work, improving relationships of every type. Let’s take a look at some of the other benefits.

Improve Decision-Making Abilities
Knowing your personality type helps your decision-making skills. For example, if you are more inclined to use your “gut” feeling, trying to make a decision based solely on logic will be difficult and may not result in the answer that fits you best. Conversely, if your personality type is one who uses reasoning, making a decision based entirely on feeling may be unreliable.

Avoid Conflict When It Arises
Conflict arises when two personality types get stuck in their own method of thinking and can’t see a situation from a different angle. Every personality also has both positive and negative traits that determine how they deal with conflict. Knowing that you tend to over-focus on the how and ignore the why in a conflict, you are able to use this knowledge to backup a bit and try to approach the conflict from a different angle. If you know you tend to react without thinking, you can make an effort to think before you speak, realizing how a brash action may make the situation worse.

Learn to Appreciate Diversity
By understanding your own personality type better, you start to realize the reasoning behind why others approach things a different way or respond from what may seem a foreign place in your eyes. You start becoming aware of what personality traits the others around you are operating with and this helps you see things from their perspective easier. It also shows you how approaching things with different reactions or with a different mindset can also have advantages.

Help Align Your Career Path
Every career has a built-in personality type that is best suited to be happy and successful in it. Knowing your own personality type will help you narrow down the choices and enable you to focus on the career that best meshes with your personality. For example, sales requires a personality that loves people, enjoys talking and can be somewhat persistent. If you are a person who likes to work alone and have a “to each his own” mindset, you are not going to be happy selling insurance. On the other hand, a career in computer programming may suit you fine. The person who enjoys being around people and facing a variety of situations would be miserable as an accountant. Focusing on the traits a person needs to perform a certain job will enable you to find a career that works well with your personality and won’t have you regretting facing each day.

As an employer, it is important to know which personality types are the best fit for your positions and your organization so you can make the right hiring decisions. It also will help you to know how best to support, promote and motivate your team if you have a better understanding of both their individual personality types and what works best for each of your positions.

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