MBTI® Test Communication In The Workplace

MBTI® Test

Within any workplace environment proper communication is a vital component to success.  The key to successfully communicating is properly identifying your communication viewpoint, figuring out who you are communicating to (from a personality type perspective), and then properly conveying your intended message in a way that keeps your audience receptive.  Today we’ll talk about three workplace communication viewpoints with appropriate communication tips including:

• Communicating As A Leader
• Communicating Within Teams
• Communicating With The Boss
• Communicating As A Leader

When communicating as a leader you are responsible for ensuring that communication lines remain clear.  It is your responsibility to make sure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities.  Performance issues are often a product of disconnect between what an employee believes is an important focus of their positions and what the leader sees as important.  As a leader it is important for you to take the proper steps so that priorities and expectations are laid out while taking into consideration that different MBTI ®Personality Types prefer varying levels of clarity.

Optimally, you want to take individual differences into consideration when clarifying roles.  Realistically, there will be a balance between communicating in a way that the majority of your employees prefer while finding a way to increase the comfort level of those who are out of preference in your communication style.  For example, MBTI ISTJ and ISFJ employees, also categorized as Assimilators, have a need to respond in a flexible way to rapidly changing situations in order to perform effectively.  If you are unable to provide them with specific solutions to help them deal with change, you can help out by creating a series of general steps or guidelines for making adjustments.  On the other hand, you may have employees that are the MBTI ISTP or INTP type, also categorized as Analyzers.  These individuals may prefer autonomy to make decisions in a flexible manner. They are able to manage situations their own way as long as you are clear about the outcome you expect.

Knowing how and when to communicate information to your employees can make your leadership duties much easier to manage.  You can read about more relevant communication tips in our previous blog on communication.

Communicating Within Teams

Teamwork is defined and operates differently across different organizations.  To complicate things further, individuals with different MBTI Personality Types view teamwork differently as well.  In any team atmosphere there is a struggle to efficiently manage time and energy in order to accomplish tasks at an appropriate pace.  It is important to get to know your team members and their characteristic work preferences.  It’s very difficult to completely know every quirk of every team member your work with, but knowing their general preferences can go a long way in finding compatible ways to communicate.  By being aware of, understanding, and accommodating these individual differences you can create effective working relationships.  With this knowledge you will be better equipped to utilize each person’s strengths in the ongoing struggle between meeting individual needs and meeting the team’s need to accomplish tasks and goals.

Communicating With The Boss

Under optimal circumstances, every boss you have will understand individual differences and have the ability to adjust their communication style based on the audience he or she is communicating toward.  In reality, individuals in leadership positions often have very specific ways of seeing things.  Your job as an employee is to identify the approach your boss prefers and then do your best to present things in a way that makes sense to them.  Knowing your communication preferences and how they interact with your bosses’ preferences is crucial.  If they are compatible then you do not have a problem, but if you have opposing methods of communication then you will need to learn how to adjust.  For example, if you have a boss that makes decisions based off of his Feeling preference then coming to him with a spreadsheet of statistics as a means to justify employee reallocations might not be your best course of action.  A boss with this preference might respond better to a report on the potential candidates and the impacts the move would make on them personally.

Learn to communicate more efficiently by understanding how your personality type best interacts with others with the MBTI test below:

Learn about your conflict-resolution style to help you resolve problems and issues as effectively as possible with the TKI test below:

[ MBTI Communication-based information was taken from the following publication: (Donna Dunning, 2003, CPP Inc.)]