In the current world view, the field of management and organization behavior is dominated by social psychologists whose world view is that a person adopts himself to the group culture. Therefore all emphasis is on groups and changing the organization culture.
However, this view forgets that we come to our business’s and organizations having lived in a family for 18-20 years……and that family formed us to be a certain way. It is through your father and mother, your brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles that most of us form ourselves, our world view, our view of self, and our values around cooperation and competition. WHICH WE THEN BRING TO OUR ORGANIZATIONS.
So it is important that we have a way of looking at what we received in our upbringing and to do that we provide a series of self-assessments which are widely used in many organizations. Too often, these assessments are run by HR and given in a company setting where privacy is not valued, thus, many people answer the self-assessments on the bases of how they should appear at work. Or how they want their peers to think about them. But it is not how they actually are.
No one self-assessment is determination. It is important to take all of them and then see what pattern emerges. The overlap. The consistency.
And the first question that emerges is:
Which is, on the one hand understandable, and on the other hand, simplistic. Patterns are patterns, they are developed slowly over time and do not go away or disappear because you do not like them or think they intrude up your management trajectory. What is IS your teacher, not what you would like to be. If you do not begin with the immediate you go on a endless pursuit of cat chasing tail.
This framework, also known as the Keirsey Test is the most widely used in the world. [The MBTI was constructed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. It is based on the typological theory proposed by Carl Jung, who had speculated that there are four principal psychological functions by which humans experience the world – sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking – and that one of these four functions is dominant for a person most of the time. "The underlying assumption of the MBTI is that we all have specific preferences in the way we construe our experiences, and these preferences underlie our interests, needs, values, and motivation."
The four areas are:
Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I).
Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).
Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).
Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).
You answer a whole series of questions [see below OR free websites] and which then place you into one of 16 types. You then read the description of that type from various sources and apply it to your management style.
Since this is so widely used, there are a number of locations on the web where you can take the self-assessment for free, for example,
For the best analysis go to:
And on top you will find 4 boxes/tabs that you want to click on, in order,
INTRODUCTION: where does a managing “style” come from?
To understand how you approach managing it is important to start with 1st assumptions.
Most of the literature about organizational behavior comes from social psychology. Their premise is: you are a blank slate and adopt the style of the organization. This is followed by the change assumption – if you want to change people, change the organizational culture and people will adapt to what they see. The social psychology premise – you follow the group. Very popular among American folks!
There is an alternative approach coming out of individual psychology and family therapy. Your personality comes out of the interactions you had in your family – parents, siblings – and that is what you bring to an organization.
Experience teaches us that both these ideas have merit. The real question is – which comes first, individual or social. As predispositions to what you find interesting, to what you are drawn to, to what you see as an ideal, and who you choose to copy.
The questions below are intended to help you understand various aspects of your managing:
As you develop you’re managing style, all your previous experiences come into play.
Thus we end up with the beginnings of a managing style.
And thus a management style is born.