Often dismissed as nothing more than a dinner party game, sometimes misused to label, pigeonhole, or stereotype people, and occasionally center-stage in Dilbertian team-building moments, personality typing is both widely used and controversial. When used well, personality assessments are an anchor tool in the emotional intelligence toolbox.

I was recently reminded of the good that personality tools can do during a workshop I attended at a large Daimler facility. I noticed the Daimler employees sharing their DiSC personality styles as a way to connect and communicate with each other. I cornered a few engineers at a break to ask them about it. They shared that Daimler provides the assessment and trainings during onboarding and reinforces their use in day-to-day interactions. I was struck by the impact — they credited the common language and understanding of themselves and each other with “changing their lives” — from using the insights to get along better with roommates and partners, to self-management, and more effective and enjoyable workplace relationships.

The scientific community admonishes popular personality assessments as not scientifically sound — protesting that there’s no evidence they measure what they say they do (validity), produce the same results when given more than once (reliability), or that typologies predict anything meaningful about job or life outcomes. The providers of these assessments vigorously defend their scientific rigor and track record. This food fight misses the point. Scientifically proven or not, each of the widely-used assessments provide a useful framework to shine light on what makes us tick and how our personality styles and preferences impact ourselves and others. And, in my experience, even the most skeptical scientists and engineers warm-up to their utility once they’ve absorbed their own assessment results and had more than a few aha’s.

What’s personality?

We’ve been fascinated with the mystery of personality since well before Hippocrates and the ancient Greeks landed on the “four temperaments” linked to the elements — air, water, fire, earth — and Ayurveda explored the doshas. Each one of us exhibits unique patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving formed from an alchemy of inborn tendencies and environmental experiences. Although personality evolves with the years, our basic ways of navigating our world tend to remain steady over a lifetime.

Personality assessment basics

I’m a conscientious objector to using any kind of personality typing for employment selection, team make-up, career direction, or suggesting what type of partner is best suited to us — all forms of labeling, pigeonholing, or stereotyping. Their use is in helping us get to know ourselves and others — our natural tendencies, blind spots, and impact on others — in service to working and living better together. One of the most game-changing shifts comes from de-personalizing differences — things that annoy us, or we may feel someone is doing to us are reframed when we realize that these behaviors come from a place of natural preferences and tendencies. Some things to know:

• Personality tools measure our preferred ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. They don’t measure IQ, EQ, or competence.

• There is no best type, style, or preference. All styles make the world go around, and have potential strengths and possible pitfalls or blind spots.

• We are a blend of all types, preferences, or styles, yet we typically favor certain ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving over others. Most of us are not purely extraverted or introverted, for example, we are somewhere along the spectrum.

• We are each unique. People with the same type, style, or preference will express it in their own unique way.

• Assessment results can change over time, but tend to be mostly consistent. You may answer the questions differently due to maturity or circumstances in your life.

• Types, preferences, and styles are not an excuse. They are natural tendencies that need to bend or stretch at times to effectively perform a job or have a successful relationship.

• These tools provide information in service to better relationships, productive conflict, management of others, and decision-making, and are only useful if used. Awareness of style in daily interactions is the only way to harness the power of the knowledge.

A sampling of popular assessments

Below is a brief overview of the tools I’ve trained in or use. Links are included to providers that offer fully supported assessments and trainings. A search of these and other tools will yield other choices at a range of costs. There are hundreds of offerings out there.

The DiSC® Model

The foundation of DiSC was first described by William Moulton Marston in his 1928 book, Emotions of Normal People. He identified four primary types of behavioral expression of emotion and integrated these four types into a two-axis model today characterized as: (1) fast-paced and outspoken vs. moderately paced, cautious, and reserved, and (2) questioning and skeptical vs. accepting and warm. Many instruments have been developed based on his work. In Wiley’s Everything DiSC® version of this, there are 12 style possibilities: the four primary styles described below, and eight blended styles. We use all styles, but usually lean to one or a blend of two.

Dominance: Fast-paced and outspoken + questioning and skeptical. The priorities of a D-style are challenge, results, and action.

influence: Fast-paced and outspoken + accepting and warm. The priorities of an i-style are action, enthusiasm, and collaboration.

Steadiness: Cautious and reflective + warm and accepting. Those with the S-style prioritize collaboration, support, and stability.

Conscientiousness: Cautious and reflective + questioning & skeptical. The C-style prioritizes stability, accuracy, and challenge.

This has become my go-to due to many of my client organizations adopting it. It’s simple, easy to use, understand, and remember. Just knowing where you and others fall on the two continuums allow instant insights into style, allowing for better communications and interactions. And, there’s deep learning and insights beneath the surface. The Wiley tools are well-done.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®)

The MBTI is based on the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung. Isabel Briggs Myers, and her mother, Katharine Briggs spent decades studying, developing, and applying Jung’s theory, and Briggs Myers developed the MBTI in the 1940’s for use by individuals and groups. MBTIonline.com offers the official Myer-Briggs assessment, with supporting tools and training.

The MBTI indicates preferences on four pairs of opposites called dichotomies. We use both preferences in each dichotomy, but usually not with equal comfort. There are 16 distinct MBTI personality types based on where one lands on each dichotomy:

Where you direct and receive your energy: Extraversion (E), a focus on the outer world of people or things, or Introversion (I), a focus on the inner world of ideas and images.

How you take in information: Sensing (S), a preference for concrete information that comes through the five senses, or Intuition (I), attention to the patterns and possibilities in the information.

How you make decisions: Thinking (T) places more weight on objective principles and impersonal facts by logically analyzing the situation, or Feeling (F), which uses personal concerns and the people involved.

How you approach the outside world: Judging (J), a preference for a more structured and planned lifestyle, or Perceiving (P), comfort with a more flexible and adaptable lifestyle.

The MBTI has been widely used for decades, enabling broad audiences a common language to understand one another. Each dichotomy offers useful insights to being and working together better, and like the DiSC, there is great depth to its use.

Big 5 Personality Traits

There is broad scientific consensus in the psychological community for this one. It’s data-based, not theory-derived, and comprised of the five personality traits observed across cultures. This tool is different from the DiSC or MBTI, in that “The five-factor model is used to help understand and predict relationships between personality traits and success in social, academic, and professional circumstances,” according to Psychology Today. The five traits are:

Openness to experience: receptivity to new ideas — seeking out a variety of experiences, comfortable with the unfamiliar vs. a preference for familiar routines, people, and ideas.

Conscientiousness: the tendency (or not) to be responsible, organized, and hard-working; to be goal-directed; and to adhere to norms and rules.

Extraversion-introversion: the tendency for one to seek out stimulation from other people vs. being alone.

Agreeableness: cooperative, polite, kind, and friendly, trusting, affectionate, and altruistic vs. on the extreme other end, manipulative, callous, aggressive and competitive.

Neuroticism: The degree to which one has a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings.

While a favorite in the psychological community, it’s not as widely used as DiSC or MBTI. Part of the reason is the language — who wants to be labeled disagreeable, neurotic, or not conscientious? There are versions of the Big 5 out there that have softened the terminology. I trained in one of them. It had some appeal, but I didn’t feel there were meaningful advantages or insights over the other tools.

CliftonStrengths®

CliftonStrengths from Gallup has its roots in work by Don Clifton, who believed that leveraging and developing people’s natural talents is more effective than focusing on gaps, or weaknesses. He and a team of researchers mined data from studies of successful people across an array of professions and identified 34 themes of talent, “naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior.” The assessment identifies individual top talents and focuses on developing them into strengths. The 34 themes fall into four categories:

Executing — making things happen: Achiever, Arranger, Belief, Consistency, Deliberative, Discipline, Focus, Responsibility, Restorative

Influencing — taking charge, speaking up and making sure others are heard: Activator, Command, Communication, Competition, Maximizer, Self-Assurance, Significance, Woo (Winning others over)

Relationship Building — building strong relationships that hold a team together: Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Includer, Individualization, Positivity, Relator

Strategic Thinking — absorbing and analyzing information that informs better decisions: Analytical, Context, Futuristic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, Learner, Strategic

My clients almost universally find value in this tool, and several educational, business, and nonprofit organizations have adopted strengths-based cultures. It’s hasn’t landed for me. I took the assessment three times, got three very different results, and I couldn’t connect to it in any meaningful way. The use of 34 strengths makes it more challenging to create easy awareness of others' styles than comparable tools.

MoneyType™

This one’s out of left field, and MoneyType would be sure sure to get the steam coming out of the ears the reliability and validity crowd. Developed as a tool for DailyWorth by Dr. Jennifer Leigh Selig, it’s based on her research into women and their relationship with money (it’s not just for women). Her research revealed five archetypes:

The Visionary sees money as a tool for self-expression and a means to follow their passion.

The Epicure loves money. They love spending it, primarily on material possessions, services, and experience.

The Independent deeply values freedom and autonomy.

The Producer is grounded, diligent, and consistent when it comes to their money.

The Nurturer sees money as a tool to help others, whether it’s their partners, children, families, co-workers, employees, or communities

While not a workplace tool, this is great for individuals and couples. It makes conscious what is often unconscious in money behaviors, can depersonalize money handling differences and judgments we might hold toward ourselves and others. It also serves up a safe way to understand the sabotage potential for each type. And, it’s free.

So many more

Like I said, there are hundreds of offerings. Core Strengths is well-respected as is The Predictive Index, and The Enneagram is popular. Find what speaks to you. (You might even want to explore the Hogwarts Sorting Hat. Some fans have linked it to MBTI traits.)

Only useful if used

Building your emotional intelligence muscle is no different than building actual muscles or skill in a sport. It takes dedicated regular practice. Operating with an eyes-wide-open sense of your style and others’ builds self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy.

Thoughts are welcome