Personalities in the professional sphere and SYNNECTA tools to identify them
Human beings have always shown an interest for self-investigation, and have wondered how they were perceived by their peers. The oldest existing typologies go back as far as 2500 years, when the ancient Greeks developed them. Nowadays, modern typology-instruments offer a variety of models and approaches, and can be used as a tool for employee development. Social sciences define the term »personality« as the result of one’s socialisation, representing the crossroads between the individual, culture and society. Personality includes individual norms and values, but also expectations and behavioural guidelines linked to one’s role. People will decide and act very differently in a given situation, since their individual perception of it will influence their experience and interpretation of the events.
Within a corporate setting, employees and managers are embedded in various roles and processes, under the influence of organisational and leadership cultures. This setting aims to encourage individuals to adapt to the company and its strategy, while disregarding their own original personality. However, personal characteristics, motives and behavioural patterns often overshadow this steering mechanism. Since they might differ from the company’s desired behavioural patterns, personalities may cause tensions within the company, colleagues or management.
An important key to identify and deal with potential tension areas is to understand and reflect on one’s own personality as well as others’. Many concrete methods to describe and work with personalities exist within the employee, team, and leadership development realms.
SYNNECTA uses, depending on the purpose and situation, the following instruments:
- MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type-Indicator)
- A type-oriented methodology based on Carl Gustav Jung’s Psychological Types.
- Its purpose is to identify one’s privileged behavioural and decision-making-patterns
- The MBTI relies on 4 dimensions, with each dimension consisting of 2 poles (1. extraversion/introversion; 2.) sensing/intuition; 3.) thinking/feeling and 4.) judging/perception), and differentiates 16 personality types.
- This test is particularly useful to understand one’s own preferences compared to others’.
- BIP (Business-focused Inventory of Personality)
- A structure-oriented test gauging job-related characteristics and their recurrence in each individual, in comparison with a reference group (for ex. other managers)
- The test also provides participants with the possibility to receive feedback (peer-perception)
- The BIP consists of four dimensions (professional orientation, social competences, work behaviour, psychological constitution), divided into 14 scales.
- This test is especially suitable for the enquiry of personal strengths and progress potentials within training, coaching, or team-development-processes
- Reiss-Profile
- The Reiss-Profile is an analytical instrument depicting an individual’s main motivational factors (intrinsic motives)
- This test identifies a person’s yearnings and how much of it he or she should/could pursue, as well as the aspects in which emotional fulfilment (happiness) is most likely to be found
- 16 »life motives« depicting an adult’s psychological basics are presented in this test, for example: power, independence, order, idealism, honour, family, physical activity, and so on.
- This test is particularly suited for coaching and team development processes as they help identify one’s true yearnings, as well as the activities and lifestyle most befitting one’s energy. This then help uncover potential ongoing personal conflicts and contradictions
- SYNNECTA 360° Feedback
- A structural, multi-source feedback allowing participants to compare their personal self-image to the one perceived by other parties.
- The standard version entails the following competence fields: leadership, entrepreneurship, expertise, social competencies and self-management
- The 360°-feedback can be adapted to client-specific contexts
- This tool is particularly suited for feedback-giving, especially for individuals or management teams undergoing development processes
You can find detailed information on these and additional diagnostics tools on our portfolio.