Myers Briggs® ESTP Personality Types and Communication in The Workplace

The ways that people communicate varies, sometimes widely. While this variation can be a good thing and makes for an interesting work environment, at times, it can cause rough patches or make life difficult in the workplace. The good news is that Dunning (2003) has found that individuals’ communication style is influenced by their MBTI®  personality type. Therefore, identifying the various personality types in your workplace and anticipating communicative challenges before they even happen can help your organization or team function even more efficiently.

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Dunning (2003) emphasizes that more often than not, these communicative mishaps are not intentional at all, but rather are the natural result of different people with different experiences working together in a fast-paced environment. So much of communication is subconscious, that it often takes focused attention to tease apart the intricacies of some interactions. MBTI test ESTP’s are known as being fast acting. They are highly passionate about their work, even to the point of seemingly overly competitive, and do not always pause to explain why they are taking the steps that they are. For these reasons, they may come across as being detached or cold to their peers or co-workers, when in reality they see themselves as simply working to accomplish a goal. In the same way, they are very vocal about supporting their own positions and do not shy away from a confrontation. However, the goal is more often to find an optimal solution to a problem as quickly and efficiently as possible than necessarily just to prove themselves right.

In order to ease communication with ESTP’s, it may be helpful to give them practical information that they can immediately integrate into their thought process, or an explicit outline of implications for them to consider. In the same way, they react more readily to facts and empirically verifiable information than to the emotional or psychological needs of their peers. Drawing attention to these considerations, especially when presenting data demonstrating their importance (e.g., statistics showing the positive correlation between production and work place environment) can be helpful to show ESTP’s the importance of taking a breath and making sure everyone is on the same page.

ESTP’s also tend to give themselves and others more negative or “constructive” feedback than positive feedback. While this is founded in a need to improve as much as possible as quickly and efficiently as possible, this style can be interpreted as being overly harsh, or as not recognizing the work of their peers or colleagues. For this reason, it may be helpful for MBTI test ESTP’s to be provided with specific templates for providing feedback, such as the “hamburger” method, in which a feedback session opens and closes with positive aspects of the work, with the corrective feedback sandwiched in between. Relevance is tantamount for ESTP’s. Without specific and reasonable applications of the information with which they are presented, they often have trouble understanding its significance and may disregard it as irrelevant. Drawing these connections explicitly in the workplace can facilitate communication with ESTP’s and others.

By working together and being aware of the characteristics and tendencies of your colleagues’ thought processes and communicative tendencies, you can spend less time and fewer resources in clarifications and instead invest it where it really matters – in improving your company or organization’s function, performance, and productivity.

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:

Reference

1. Introduction to Type and Communication. (Dunning, D. CPP, 2003)

Learn More About the MBTI ESTP Personality Type:

• Explore our MBTI ESTP Personality Type Page

Explore Our Other ESTP Blog Pages:

• Myers-Briggs test ESTP Personality Type and Leadership Styles Blog
• Myers-Briggs test ESTP Personality Type and Innovation Method’s Blog
• Myers-Briggs test ESTP Personality Type and Project Management Blog
• Myers-Briggs test ESTP Personality Type and Emotional Intelligence Blog
• Myers-Briggs test ESTP Personality Type and Learning Styles Blog
• Myers-Briggs test ESTP Personality Type and Decision-Making Blog

Click on one of these corresponding popular ESTP Careers for detailed information including Career Stats, Income Stats, Daily Tasks and Required Education: Automotive Specialty Technician, Construction Laborer, Counter and rental clerk,Electrician, Farm and Ranch Managers, Firefighters, Freight Handler, Loan Officer, Restaurant Cook and Construction supervisors.

Click On Your Personality Type in The Graph Below & Read About Your Communication Style

Click on a link below to read more about different MBTI Personality Types