MBTI® Test: Personality and Behavior in the Workplace

In Careers, MBTI, Personality Type by Jonathan Bollag, Owner and Founder

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® test  (MBTI® test) is useful in many different ways. It is used for career counseling, couples counseling, self help, business building, employee retention, conflict management, assessing leadership characteristics as well as many other areas. The area we will be discussing today is how your MBTI test personality type corresponds with how you act and respond to other personality types including but not limited to individuals, co-workers, groups and team members. In addition we will discuss how you behave in your work surroundings.

For those of you who believe you are of the Extroverted Type, do these characteristics sound familiar?

Extroverts in the workplace usually:

  • Prefer energetic situations and job atmospheres
  • Want to follow a leader who is action-oriented
  • Are enthusiastic when approaching change
  • Find a small amount of interaction with others stressful

How about Introversion?  Does the following sound familiar?

At work, Introverts tend to:

  • Prefer a calm atmosphere
  • Prefer a business leader who contemplates and thinks before acting
  • Prefer to start the problem-solving process individually
  • Find too much person-to-person interaction stressful

How about the remainder characteristics of type? Read on and choose what characteristics sound most like you in the workplace. If you have completed the Myers-Briggs® test, which of course I highly suggest, compare workplace behavior and the information to follow to your MBTI test personality type. Know and learn your MBTI Type and how it coincides with your workplace behavior and compare this behavior with the following list of on-the-job traits.

At work The Sensing Type tends to:

  • Want practical and pragmatic leadership
  • Feel stressed when overloaded with theories as opposed to concrete facts
  • Value being surrounded by realistic people

At work The Intuitive Type tends to:

  • Talk in general terms
  • Value being surrounded by imaginative people
  • Want visionary leadership
  • Create new problem-solving methods

At work Thinking Types tend to:

  • Offer objective advice
  • Want standards that are fair to people
  • Desire just leadership
  • Find incompetence stressful

At work Feeling Types tend to:

  • Offer  supportive advice
  • Want standards that are sympathetic to people
  • Desire compassionate leadership
  • Find lack of cooperation stressful

At work Judging Types tend to:

  • Want communication to be systematic
  • Prefer their environment to be scheduled
  • Are comfortable moving toward a fixed solution
  • Find indecisiveness stressful

At work Perceiving Types tend to:

  • Want communication to be spontaneous
  • Prefer a flexible environment
  • Are comfortable keeping options open
  • Find premature closure stressful

After reviewing this information you should have a sense of how your MBTI results relate to your workplace preferences. If you haven’t taken the MBTI test, now is a perfect time to get a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Report to see where you fit in work preference categories. Simply complete your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment and utilize our Blogs and Resource Center to take your personal and professional growth to the next level.

Good Luck!

(Hirsh, E. et al. 2003).