ENFP & ISTJ

Another leadership conference. This time for Optics and Photonics students in San Diego. Haven't I been through enough of these already? I had already dozed off at least once during the endless powerpoint slides when the speaker brought up this as the summary slide to her 3-hr presentation:


at that moment I realized that I've probably learned all I can ever learn from lectures on leadership and personalities. The line "always something new" at the bottom right of the slide is antithetical. I've gone around the loop of leadership psychology and now the film is starting over again.

If you've gone to enough team-building exercises, you'll eventually come across the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) shown in the picture. You answer some questions, and it gives you a personality profile defined by 4 letters representing 4 characteristic categories of how you interact with the world and other people:

1. Where we get our energy
Extrovert (E) or Introvert (I)
2. How we interpret information
Intuition (N) or Sensing (S)
3. How we make decisions
Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
4. Orientation to the outer world
Perceiving (P) or Judging (J)

Years ago when I was a resident assistant, I took the test. I'm an ENFP. Shijie just took the test during her training as a resident assistant. She is an ISTJ. We're total opposites. The perfect pair of counterparts you may ask? Well, we both weren't particularly surprised.

From Wikipedia:
"ENFPs are Champions who are good at motivating. They are initiators of change, keenly perceptive of possibilities. They energize and stimulate others through their contagious enthusiasm."
"ISTJs are Inspectors who are good at certifiying. They thrive on organization. They keep their lives and environments well-regulated. They bring painstaking attention to detail in their work and will not rest until a job is well completed."

This assessment may not be totally accurate, but we do see this all the time. I get our research group and investors motivated at work, and she interprets all sorts of regulation in her many roles in the law field. I'm usually the motivator behind going somewhere or doing something different, and she's the rational person keeping us from spending too much money on silly things (I swear I'm getting better) or spending too much time on perfecting near-meaningless designs or reports.

One of our good friends Nelson is an ENTJ. We find it funny that he carries strong characteristics of each of us, and in nearly half-&-half proportions as described in the personality profile.

Another thing this test gives is a listing of most and least likely jobs someone of your personality type would be well suited for. Among the least likely jobs for my type: Scientist. Either I strongly disagree with that, or I hope I'm the exception.