$name

Myers-Briggs Personality Types and Leadership

A couple of years back I wrote a blog series on type and leadership, and I’m now following that up with a few additional ideas focusing on the MBTI^® process pairs: ST, SF, NF, and NT. While the T–F and J–P preference pairs are the ones most often explored in relation to leadership (maybe I’ll write about the TJ, TP, FJ, and FP pairs next), I still like looking at the middle letters of people’s four-letter type the most.

As you consider the content of this next series, remember that people of any type can be a successful leader if they have the motivation. Each type just leads in a different way. As we teach in our MBTI^® Certification Program, the best leaders are those who know how to flex to the needs of their followers. I can think of times in my past when I was seen as a wonderful leader by some and a not-so-wonderful leader by others. A lot of it had to do with how willing I was to flex to the needs of the people I was leading.

By the way, CPP has an excellent booklet on this very topic, titled Introduction to Myers-Briggs® Type and Leadership and a new ready-to-present training workshop: Leader Development: An MBTI® Step I™ Type Training Workshop

In addition, CPP has a lot of complimentary resources surrounding MBTI personality type and leadership. A few of these are listed below if you want to brush up on your MBTI type and leadership knowledge as we go through the series, or if perhaps you want to check out these resources for the first time.

• Coaching Transformational Leaders with the Myers-Briggs Assessment [white paper]
• Creating Inspirational Leaders: Beginning to Build Competencies in Today's Leaders [webinar recording and slides]
• Leadership Development within the Organization [short video]
• Leadership Longevity: Addressing Needs Throughout the Employee Life Cycle [webinar recording]
• How Personality Type Affects Leadership Style [Fast Company article]