I, mastermind

I've always found the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment a very interesting way to learn more about myself and other people. I've taken the assessment numerous times, and I've come out as an INTJ (introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging) every time, except one time when I came out as an INFJ. I took the assessment again yesterday, and was once again declared an INTJ by the assessment.

Personality tests and assessments can be good indicators of how people will behave or what gets them going. My company uses one in particular, and many employees have embraced sharing their top five personality "themes" with other people as a way of introducing themselves or letting others know more about what makes them tick. Sometimes we do rather touchy-feely exercises where we go around the room and talk about our themes and how they are a part of who we are and what we do. I've never found these exercises to do more than scratch the surface, so I got my previous team to take the MBTI so that we could spend time talking in depth about our personalities and how they come into play at work. It was interesting to see how many people had the same personality type within the team--a phenomenon I'd noticed with the signature themes. For example, my type--INTJ--supposedly makes up less than 1% of the total population, so I was surprised to find that four other members of the team were also INTJs. Only one member of the team was an extrovert, and everyone else was an introvert. Considering the nature of the work (system and process design), perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise.

Some interesting facts and anecdotes about INTJs that I believe match my personality/behavior very well:

- The INTJ type is sometimes called the "mastermind". INTJs will typically stay in the background and not assume leadership roles until others have failed.

- "To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know."

- "INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake." (italics are my own--this whole paragraph is a good description of why I have sometimes rejected authority figures, social norms, my own upbringing, etc.)

- "Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this." Much to my co-workers' and wife's dismay, I'm afraid.

- "INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality."

- "Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations. ... many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense." (again, italics are my own--I know how much I hate small talk, and as for flirtation, I've been told I neither recognize it when I flirt nor when anyone else flirts with me)

Now, I mention all of this merely to describe my personality/behavior, but not to excuse it. Obviously, some of the above personality traits will rub people the wrong way, and over the years, I've rubbed a lot of people the wrong way--sometimes on purpose, and sometimes inadvertently. Ultimately, I am who I am, as are we all.


Some famous INTJs:

Dan Akroyd
Chevy Chase
Julius Caesar
Hannibal
Peter Jennings
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Donald Rumsfeld
Colin Powell
Rudy Giuliani
Lance Armstrong
Thomas Jefferson
John Kennedy
Alan Greenspan
Friedrich Nietzsche
Stephen Hawking
Isaac Newton
Ayn Rand

If you'd like to take a version of the MBTI, you can find a free one here:

Jung Typology Test



What's your type? Any interesting or cool stories related to personality tests?