What Personality Profiles Lead To Success?
Personality profiles generally group people into types based on the traits they share. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one such test that’s often used for career advancement. While any profile can lead to success, it’s helpful to pursue the right career for your profile. However, you can also take steps to align your profile with your dream job, even when they don’t appear compatible.
Overview
The MBTI sorts people into 16 personality types based on the following four pairs of opposing elements:
- Extroversion-introversion
- Sensing-intuition
- Thinking-feeling
- Judging-perceiving
The extroversion-introversion pair describes how you spend your energy, and the sensing-intuition pair describes how you receive information. Thinking-feeling describes how you make decisions, and judging-perceiving describes how you see the world.
Elements
Associating your personality type with your actions can provide insight into your behavior in the workplace. For example, introverts must expend greater effort in communicating with others, which can present a challenge when they need help. Sensing types are able to gather facts from their environment, while intuitive types look for meaning in patterns and connections. Thinkers try to find logical solutions to problems, but feelers make decisions based on emotions, needs and values. Judgers look for structure in their organization, while perceivers prefer to remain flexible with respect to structure.
Jobs by Personality Type
Many jobs naturally align with a particular MBTI personality type. For example, Introverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging (ISTJ) types are often attorneys, civil engineers, dentists, loan officers and software developers. Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging (INFJ) types are well-suited to be animators, designers, HR managers, professors and school counselors. Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking and Perceiving (ESTP) types are compatible with professions like acting, paramedics, entrepreneurs, sales managers and stockbrokers. Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging (ENTJ) types are likely be art directors, editors, executive assistants, real estate brokers and sociologists.
Find Your Career Passion
Discovering what you’re passionate about requires time and self-awareness, especially if you want to make it your career. If you already have job, start by identifying the high and low points of your work day. This information can help you decide to apply for a different role or even promotion that better suits your personality type. If you’re still in school, you should learn which subjects and classes are your favorites, and why. This type of inward thinking can help you select your major and career.
Align Your Career with your Passion
The Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-based (SMART) framework can help you align your career with your passion. Begin this process by outlining your career goals as specifically as possible. You’ll also need to determine what you can reasonably accomplish within set timeframes. You must then identify the actions needed to reach goals that align with your personality types. Finally, the SMART framework requires you to prioritize these action items.
