Personal Essay Sample - MBTI Reflections

Since the time I got my MBTI results, I have always been thinking about these results. I often ask myself a question like who knows something that I dont know about myself. The MBTI results have taught me several new things about myself.

From the results, my reported type was ISFJ (Introversion, Sensing, Feeling, and Judging). Although I feel that this personality type accurately describe me, I have a feeling that taking the same test on a different day would give a slightly different answer because preferences change on a day to day basis. I also do not think that the MBTI puts people in these boxes forever because there are descriptions of the weaknesses of each kind of personality and ways to improve on them. Every personality type is positive, and I think that my ISFJ personality is a representation of my strengths. The Feeling aspect of this personality type gives excellent analytical abilities, though introverted the individuals have people skills as well as robust social relationships (Defiance College, 2106). Although judging, these individuals are receptive to new ideas and change.

I am hardworking, conscience, friendly, quiet, and responsible. I am committed, thorough, steady, and accurate in doing my duties. Additionally, I am considerate and remember the specifics of people who are important to me, love peace, and I have a concern of how other people feel. I like spending time with others but on one on one relationships and its not that I hate others, it is that I feel disconnected when people are many as I cannot know each person individually. The most attractive job families for the ISFJ type are healthcare support, office administrative support, and healthcare practitioner and technical operations, while the less attractive ones are architecture and engineering, construction and extraction, farming, fishing and forestry, arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence has an emerging concept has had profound effects on the workforce. It is crucial in increasing an organizations success as it helps individuals learn to discover and manage their emotions as well as consider feelings of others to develop healthy relationships. Emotional intelligence mostly deals with skills that individuals need to build than just personality traits. For one to achieve high levels of emotional intelligence, there are several factors about oneself that a person needs to analyze. The components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management (Goleman, 1997). For me to be self-aware, I have to understand my emotions, strengths and weaknesses, and my needs. Social awareness includes empathy, an interest in meeting others needs, and an understanding of the culture and power relationships of a group. Social knowledge and the social skills involve an external focus because one must be considerate of the emotions of others, and as well work towards harnessing your feelings and those of others to produce healthy relationships. Self-management is about keeping ones disruptive impulses and emotions under control. It is concerned with being honest, trustworthy, and displaying integrity. Self-management also entails adaptation to the changing situations, readiness to respond to opportunities, a drive to improve and excel, as well as being optimistic about chances. Relationship management involves using the awareness of your emotions and the emotions of others to manage interactions successfully. It entails clear communication and handling conflicts effectively.

Relationship management is a bond a person builds with others over time. Regarding emotional intelligence, some of my strengths are hardworking, respect for others, adhere to rules, helping others out, patience, and clarity in expectations which helps me relate well with others in all circumstance. My weakness is on conflict avoidance and asserting my needs, and trying new things. I, therefore, need an improvement on these issues. I should focus on ways of improving my emotional intelligence by following a self-evaluation because emotional intelligence helps one interact well with others as well as pursue specific goals. I should from now onwards prioritize as well as use my emotional information in guiding my thoughts and behavior.

I Speak Your Language Survey

I participated in a survey of personal styles where I had to rate some self-descriptive statement. After ranking each comment, I copied them in three different columns. I summed the totals both horizontally and vertically. The columns were A, B, and C, and I separately recorded the totals of each of the three columns in two sections; favorable conditions and stress conditions where I recorded the horizontal totals under the intuition, thinkers, feelers, and sensors personality types and were to add up to 90. In the favorable conditions, the scores were 17, 20, 28, and 25 for intuitors, thinkers, feelers, and sensors respectively. In the stress conditions, the scores were 20, 18, 22, and 30 for intuitors, thinkers, feelers, and sensors respectively. It means that feelers score the highest in the favorable condition while the sensors score high in the stress conditions.

From this survey, I can conclude that a successful leader is one who speaks the language of his subordinates thus passing the message to others. People belong to one of the four main categories regarding giving and receiving information. The intuitors are full of ideas along with novel approaches to the workplace challenges. They better accept the rejection of their less practical solutions. Thinkers are process oriented, organized, planful, and thorough, while the feelers have a concern how to do things than that thing itself. They are loyal introspective, empathetic, probing, and closed-minded. They are also impulsive and subjective. They emphasize on the process than on the program. Feelers find happiness in a harmonious workplace.

On the other hand, sensors are decisive, impatient, and do things swiftly. They are assertive, dogmatic, conventional, pragmatic judging and defensive. They also have a short range focus and result oriented. From the scores in the two sections, my personality type is that of a feeler in favorable conditions and a sensor in the stress conditions. All these personalities benefit both an individual regarding personal growth, adapt to change, and improved relationships, while an organization gains through improved work relations and productivity.

Leadership Skills

When I thought about leadership, I could not realize how essential it is to explore and reflect on how authentic a leader is. When I imagine myself in a leadership position, I am not concerned with how I perform, but on how people see me and if they are ready to follow my lead, or whether they like me. In the process of dealing with such insecurities, I may end up being the opposite of my real self to live up to the expectation around my friends, family, and co-workers. Development of the leadership skills is vital to the achievement of both professional and personal success. Therefore, development of leadership skills is integral in individuals for effective leadership. Personally, I have a vision for transformational leadership where I can share my view, motivate the team, as well as a gain in commitment which consequently will inspire performance. I am keen to staff motivation by giving the appropriate objectives and within their capabilities.

However, it is at times challenging, and I find myself in transactional leadership. My leadership philosophy is being a leader with inspirational qualities and being credible. Transformational leadership encompasses being hardworking, approachable, competent, trustworthy and supportive, which is all that followers expect from their leader. Self-evaluation on the leadership competence is essential for leaders. To increase the leadership ability, leaders need to learn, grow, and reflect continuously. The backbone of transformational leadership is making an organization succeed. A leader should develop a positive relationship with his/her associates to improve the organizational culture. Positive interpersonal relationships enable the associates to maintain positive performance to support the leaders attitude as well as feel valued by their leader (Dessler, 2004). The application of the transformational approach is prospective for improving organizational performance, and culture.

Decision Making

People say that it is hard to make decisions. Majority of people put off the decision process by endlessly looking for additional information or getting recommendations from other people. The leadership style and organizational culture determine the process of making decisions. People can make decisions by use of either reason or intuition, or both. Intuition involves the use of gut feelings concerning the possible course of action. It combines the experience and personal values, and it mirrors your learning about life. However, it does not base on reality, but only your perceptions many of which are childhood encounters and as a result may not be mature. It is therefore essential to carefully examine my gut feeling especially in instances where I have strong feelings against a particular course of action. On the other hand, reasoning involves the use of facts to make decisions. Logic can ignore the emotional aspects and especially the past encounters when making decisions.

Effective decision making is a critical skill at work. It is crucial in the attainment of organizational success. In decision making, there should be commitment, knowledge, and objectivity. For decision making to be effective, the people involved must focus on interests and not positions to allow mutual gain and the acceptance of objectives. Inadequate information, too much information, too many people, vested interest, and emotional attachments can hinder effective decision making. Using a step by step process of making decisions results in thoughtful and more deliberate decisions and ensures that the choice made is most satisfying. When making a decision, I have to identify the decision, gather relevant information, identify alternatives, weigh evidence, choosing among other options, take action, and finally review the decision and its consequences. I should not allow judgmental bias interfere with my decision making.

References

Defiance College. (2106). What's Your Personality Type? Retrieved from: http://library.defiance.edu/learningstyles/myersbriggs

Dessler, G. (2004). Management: principles and practices for tomorrows leaders (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Upper Saddle River.

Goleman, D. (1997). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York, NY: Bantam Dell Books.

http://www.umassd.edu/fycm/decisionmaking/process/