I'm an ISFJ and What It Means?
Does this sound like anybody you know?
The dominant quality in their lives is an abiding respect and sense of personal responsibility for doing what needs to be done in the here-and-now. Actions that are of practical help to others are of particular importance to ISFJs. Their realism, organizing abilities, and command of the facts lead to their thorough attention in completing tasks. ISFJs bring an aura of great warmth, caring and dependability to all that they do; they take their work seriously and believe others should do so as well.
Usually I scoff at personality tests, except when they probably nail me to a T.
The “I” stands for Introvert and it represents how I get my energy. Meaning I don’t get it from having to be around and feeding off of other people. (There were ten questions and all ten of them were in the “I” category!)
The “S” is for Sensing and it is how I take in information as opposed to being Intuitive, which would have been an “N”. (This was the second strongest where the questions lined up 15 for the “S” and 5 for the “N”.)
The next two weren’t so widespread, but enough to be significant, I guess.
The “F” is for Feeling as opposed to “T” for Thinking in how we make decisions. That kind of surprised me. As did the “J” versus the “P” for Judging and Perceiving.
I would have thought that I fit this question better: “Are you objective, impersonal, interested in goals and ideas (Thinker)?” But it says that I lean more this way: “Or are you more friendly, personal, interested in others, and are comfortable with deep emotions (Feeler)?” Now that you put it *that* way, perhaps I would agree.
Here’s the “J” and “P” questions: “Are you organized, work-comes-first, decisive person (Judger)?” or “Or are you an adaptable, spontaneous person who prefers to explore the possibilities (Perceiver)?” I guess I think that I’m a little of both, but the “Judger” makes more sense of who I am.
So the Meyer-Briggs system pegged me.
If you know of any of this, the other managers are ESFJ, ENFJ (2), ESTJ, XSTJ, ESXJ (S) - that is, of those employees of the hospital that I'm working at/with.
The dominant quality in their lives is an abiding respect and sense of personal responsibility for doing what needs to be done in the here-and-now. Actions that are of practical help to others are of particular importance to ISFJs. Their realism, organizing abilities, and command of the facts lead to their thorough attention in completing tasks. ISFJs bring an aura of great warmth, caring and dependability to all that they do; they take their work seriously and believe others should do so as well.
Usually I scoff at personality tests, except when they probably nail me to a T.
The “I” stands for Introvert and it represents how I get my energy. Meaning I don’t get it from having to be around and feeding off of other people. (There were ten questions and all ten of them were in the “I” category!)
The “S” is for Sensing and it is how I take in information as opposed to being Intuitive, which would have been an “N”. (This was the second strongest where the questions lined up 15 for the “S” and 5 for the “N”.)
The next two weren’t so widespread, but enough to be significant, I guess.
The “F” is for Feeling as opposed to “T” for Thinking in how we make decisions. That kind of surprised me. As did the “J” versus the “P” for Judging and Perceiving.
I would have thought that I fit this question better: “Are you objective, impersonal, interested in goals and ideas (Thinker)?” But it says that I lean more this way: “Or are you more friendly, personal, interested in others, and are comfortable with deep emotions (Feeler)?” Now that you put it *that* way, perhaps I would agree.
Here’s the “J” and “P” questions: “Are you organized, work-comes-first, decisive person (Judger)?” or “Or are you an adaptable, spontaneous person who prefers to explore the possibilities (Perceiver)?” I guess I think that I’m a little of both, but the “Judger” makes more sense of who I am.
So the Meyer-Briggs system pegged me.
If you know of any of this, the other managers are ESFJ, ENFJ (2), ESTJ, XSTJ, ESXJ (S) - that is, of those employees of the hospital that I'm working at/with.
posted by WalkSports.com | 11:28 AM
2 Comments:
Jon,
It is thought-provoking observations like this that makes us glad that we are included amongst your readers. I have taken variations of the Meyer-Briggs tests in group training a number of times over the past 25 years. Some were explicitly using the letters, others were using some kind of color coding. (e.g. True Colors). Most recently I came out as an INTP, but I have more commonly been INTJ or INFJ. There are a number of books out that work through this system (“Please Understand Me” being one of the oldest). I have seen the True Colors Scale gaining a lot of steam as it seems to be less exclusive, and allows the trainer to break up the folks into four easy to manage color groups (based upon the dominant color). In that scale, I was Green Blue Gold Orange, in order of dominance (or the Owl, when they assigned animals).
There are a lot of opportunities and problems with the whole classification approach. I used this in my own company ten years ago as a means of making job assignments. I had found that some folks hated making phone calls, and others love doing so. On the other hand, some liked spending long hours working with data and models. When we did the Meyers-Brigg exam, those differences were made explicit. We were able to distribute the assignments to the employees favoring the likes and trying to avoid the dislikes. This worked out really well, and was probably the best change I had made during that time.
However, the big danger occurs when these are used inappropriately (profiling). As a young engineer years ago, when I was first exposed to the Meyer-Briggs system, the company found that one of the Senior VPs was making promotions based upon the candidate’s profile (similarity to his). When this same VP terminated an employee who then claimed that it was because the VP had profiled his job, and determined that he did not fit the profile, the whole program was cancelled. Profiling may have its place when looking for a salesman, or accountant type personality, but can be very risky.
Also, very often, there becomes a perception that there is a certain desired pattern in a company (usually that of a senior manager or department head), and then everyone starts trying to second guess the test questions so that they meet the desired profile.
Finally, when I took the tests home and had my family take them, it caused no end of problems as we saw that we all had distinctly different personalities but we had no idea how to respond to them.
But, being the odd man out has a lot of value, when only that personality type favors the job at hand.
In any case, if any of your other readers were interested in taking the test, there are several online locations where one can get a limited read of their profile. I tested myself and was able to reproduce my general patterns.
Meyer-Briggs.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
True Colors
http://www.truecolorscareer.com/quiz.asp
These next three sites give some explanation of the True Colors Approach.
http://www.truecolorscareer.com/pForm1.asp
http://true-colors.com/TCSite/whyusetruecolors.html#
http://www.cyberbeach.net/~aperreau/TC.html
Ron
I was an INTJ when I took the test about 20 years ago...I'm curious if that would change if I took it today.
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