I S T J

A few of you might have a general idea of what this post title represents, especially if you work or have worked in some sort of managerial capacity. Those four letters, in broad strokes, try to explain just who I am – from a personality POV. Today I thought we’d take a look under my hood and try to decipher just what it is that makes DL tick. Anybody interested?

The letters above are my score from the Myers-Briggs personality test given by my employer several years ago.  It is just one of a battery of tests I was subjected to, but I picked this one because it is the easiest to explain. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a tool for identifying 16 different personality types that can be used to describe people.  The MBTI is based on the work of psychologist 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 idea is to help explain why different kinds of people are interested in different things, prefer different kinds of work, and sometimes find it hard to understand each other – all due to their basic differences in how people take in information and make decisions about it. The chart below (from Wikipedia) will help explain.

According to the answers I offered, I fell into the ISTJ camp. The typical traits you’ll encounter with us ISTJers are:

Quiet, serious, earn success through thoroughness and dependability.

Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic, and responsible.

Decide logically what should be done and work toward it steadily, regardless of distractions.

Take pleasure in making everything orderly and organized – their work, their home, their life.

Value traditions and loyalty.

If you dig a little deeper you’ll find a more descriptive explanation. People with ISTJ preferences have a strong sense of responsibility and great loyalty to the organizations, families, and relationships in their lives.  They generally prefer to work alone and be accountable for the results; however, they are comfortable working in teams when it is necessary to do the job right, when roles are clearly defined, and when people fulfill assigned responsibilities.  ISTJ people are social when comfortable in the roles they are playing; however, they generally do not share their wealth of rich sensing observations and memories except with close friends.

My opinion of how I scored and the results? Dead-on! I was skeptical going into the process, but after reading the results I was shocked (especially since the questions themselves seemed so obtuse and unrelated to personality). There was no surprise in seeing introvert as part of the score (always known that much), but there is so much more that is involved. Now I wonder how other writers are scored. 

So why did I take the test in the first place? First off, understanding who you are and how you react in certain situations is the first step to developing positive work relationships. Secondly, I wasn’t the only one having my mind probed. Everyone I worked with took the same test, and it’s the differences identified between us where the most benefit was derived.

Curious how you would score? Take your own Myers-Briggs test HERE.

Care to share your score?