Using Personality Assessments in Your Business

Business leaders should not shy away from using personality assessments as a tool for leadership. Instruments like the Myers-Briggs or Enneagram reveal characteristics in your workers that enable you to lead them better and improve the organization as well. Below are some specific ways you can use personality assessments in your business.

Hiring Practices
Understanding a potential employee’s personality traits can be incredibly helpful during the hiring process. For instance, if the individual is an introvert applying to fill a sales position, you may want to know more about how they interact with people and what they do to recharge after a day of small talk with clients. These factors will play into their success as well as their job satisfaction.

Creating Buyer Personas
Personality assessments don’t just work for you internally; you can use them in the way you relate to customers and potential customers, too. When you create your buyer personas, think about which personality type would be most likely to consider your product. Which personality would be least likely to consider your product? How can you market specifically to those personalities?

Assigning Project Tasks
When your organization has a large, collaborative project to accomplish, understanding the personalities of those on your team will help you more effectively delegate tasks. For example, if part of the project requires analyzing statistical data, you probably don’t want to assign that task to the creative-minded worker. At the same time, assigning a behind the scenes, independent task to the introvert in the group will be appreciated.

Improved Communication
Personality assessments give you insight into the inner workings of your employees you might not otherwise gather in the work environment. These bits of information can help you improve your communication with various team members. An employee with a sanguine type personality loves to talk shop over drinks or lunch. While the more analytical minded employees may prefer an email with bullet points. Global thinkers function best when they’re able to see the big picture rather than just their cog in the machine.

Conflict Resolution
Any time a group of people spends 40 hours a week together, conflict will inevitably surface. When your entire team understands the basics of their co-workers’ personalities, they can use that information to resolve conflicts among themselves. The task-oriented visionary may need to be reminded that her phlegmatic co-worker appreciates positive feedback on occasion. The sensitive extrovert may need to remember that his introverted teammate isn’t giving him the cold-shoulder when she doesn’t want to chit-chat.

Ideally your employees could use the knowledge they gain from personality assessments to resolve their own conflicts, but if they don’t, you can incorporate the information into your mediation with them.

You can’t adequately lead people you don’t know well. Personality assessments give you a means of better understanding your employees and helping your employees better understand each other.