How Do You Prefer to Work? The 4 Office Personality Types Posted on January 4, 2016June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Do you know your personality type? Before you can lead a team, you need to know yourself first. By knowing what makes you tick, you will be able to create a productive and healthy working environment. The Meyers & Briggs test is a fun little test to understand yourself and your own tendencies and how they stack up against the other personality types. It’s a great tool to have in your back pocket to know how to engage with others in the workplace. It is important to understand the motivations of different people around you and the dynamic that occurs between personalities. How do you prefer to work? There are 8 personality traits that every person has to varying degrees. By observing which traits are dominant in yourself and your employees, you’ll be able to be a better leader with a productive and happy team. Extroversion vs. Introversion How you manage and replenish your personal energy is a very important trait you should be aware of because it allows you to take better care of yourself in the workplace. Extraverts thrive working on teams and brainstorming with others. Always looking for ways to connect and interact, you’ll find them at happy hours and enthusiastic for company events. Introverts, often thoughtful, reserved, and focused, prefer to work independently. They also tend to be sensitive to external stimulation. Intuition vs. Sensing How you gather and process information determines whether you are intuition or sensing oriented. This is the way you view the world. Sensing or observant dominants are highly practical, pragmatic, and down-to earth with strong habits and good focus on what is happening or what has already happened. They are based in facts and don’t make “gut” decisions like intuitive individuals. Imaginative, open-minded, and curious, they prefer experiencing new things, focusing on hidden meanings and future possibilities. Feeling vs. Thinking When handling a client problem, do you stick with the facts or do you focus more on how the client is feeling? Thinkers are analytical, objective, and rational who love looking at the details. They focus on learning as much as they can about a particular topic and increasing their knowledge base. Prioritizing logic over emotions, thinkers tend to hide their feelings in order to be more efficient. Feelers are more passionate, empathetic, warm and supportive. They often put themselves in others shoes and can see different perspectives when working on projects. Emotionally expressive, feelers are empathetic and often less competitive – focused on creating harmony and cooperation. Perceiving vs. Judging Observe how you complete projects — do you stick with the plan or tend to adapt quickly to new information? This organization and structuring of daily life and work determines whether you are judging or perceiving oriented. Judgers are ambitious, determined, highly organized, and decisive. Valuing clarity and predictability, judgers work well with structure and plans. Perceivers are more open-minded, adaptable, and spontaneous. They respond well to change and unpredictable situations. Perceivers are good at improvising and prefer to keep their options open. It’s also important to look at how confident we are in our abilities and decisions. An assertive personality type are self-assured, even tempered, and resistant to stress. Turbulent personality types are self-conscious, sensitive to stress but are also success driven, perfectionistic, and eager to please. As we grow and learn, we may shift between assertive and turbulent stages. What’s your role? These mix of personality traits create a range of 16 different personality types. These personality types fall into four roles – analysts, diplomats, sentinels, and explorers. Our role determines our goals, interests, preferred activities, and leadership styles. Analysts Fiercely independent, open-minded, and strong-willed, Analysts use their imagination from a utilitarian and objective perspective. Embracing rationality, they strive to find what works, thriving in technical fields. While they are excellent strategic thinkers, they can be socially difficult as they favor function over what satisfies everybody. However, this could lead to more productivity and organization in the workplace. Analyst leaders create and adapt systems to improve processes. At Hatchbuck, our support and consultant roles are filled with analysts. Sam and Eric help our customers solve any product issues. Lindsey is a rockstar at onboarding new customers and helping them adjust their strategies to make Hatchbuck work for them. Analysts excel in these solution-oriented roles. Diplomats Warm, tactful, and empathetic, Diplomats have a strong, supportive influence on office politics and harmony. They use their strategic imagination to focus on collaboration and positive participation. When asked to make a difficult decision and rely on cold rationality, Diplomats can cause issues — sympathetic to all sides. This sympathy, however, leads them to promote higher causes and values. Diplomat leaders have strong abilities to cast a vision to inspire and look forward to what the future can bring. Our product, marketing, and business development teams house the Hatchbuck Diplomats. Don, our fearless CEO, brings in the whole team when making product decisions to hear all sides of an issue. Our CTO, Matt is Hatchbuck’s greatest defender knowing all its ins and outs. Ben’s enthusiasm for the future of the product inspires us all. Keely spearheads all our team service projects, encouraging everyone to make a difference in the St. Louis community. Nicci and Tricia work with partners and sales opportunities to see how we can best work together. Sentinels Hard-working, precise, and conventional, Sentinels create and embrace order and stability in the workplace. They excel in logistic or administrative roles. While they do not shy away from difficult tasks and stick to their plans, Sentinels can also be adamant and uncompromising. However, their highly practical and meticulous manner allows them to handle many details. Sentinel leaders aim to protect and serve, are often strict about rules and protocols, and honor the past successes. Our Director of Customer Success, Erin, manages the largest team at Hatchbuck, both support and onboarding. She is a process master and works tirelessly to make things easier for her team. Tegan is always eager to connect and help small business owners find the right solution for their business. Explorers Explorers are masters of tools and techniques. They are quick on their feet, pragmatic, and spontaneous. Explorers are the masters of tools – learning, mastering, and teaching new tools and techniques. Since they are so quick to adapt, they can be irreplaceable in crises but they can push towards taking on big risks. As leaders, explorers are quick to find solutions and can drive an organization into a new direction. Explorers are the big thinking disrupters and entrepreneurs. Not only are personality types informative for the workplace but they are also fun! Take the test and share your personality type with us on Facebook. Was it close or way off?