Jun 27 2008
INFJ: the most rare of all the types Part 2
The Myers-Briggs personality typology system was developed in the 1930s by Katharine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, as a way to place people in work environments naturally suited to their talents and aptitudes during World War II. It is based on the theory of temperaments by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Jung believed differences in our personalities are due to our “preferences”. Myers-Briggs makes Jung’s theories practical and applicable in daily life.
The Myers Briggs model of personality has many applications, from team building to navigating midlife.The guidelines on personality types are best used as a means for understanding, appreciating, and interacting with various preferences, not as mere labels to place on others to justify your position or behavior.
In the workplace, the INFJ usually shows up in areas where they can be creative and somewhat independent. They have a natural affinity for art, and many excel in the sciences, where they make use of their intuition. INFJs can also be found in service-oriented professions. They are not good at dealing with minutia or very detailed tasks. The INFJ will either avoid such things, or else go to the other extreme and become enveloped in the details to the extent that they can no longer see the big picture. An INFJ who has gone the route of becoming meticulous about details may be highly critical of other individuals who are not. Source
In the workplace knowledge of personality provided by the Myers Brigg Test can give you the clues you need to increase both your effectiveness, job satisfaction and explain your natural positive motivation in terms of workplace needs. You can use your knowledge of your type to better handle conflict, improve your sales force, reduce absenteeism, improve work team dynamics, build leadership ability and many other uses that positively impact your bottom line.
For those who want to understand Isabel Briggs Myers‘ model in more depth, this article from the teamtechnology.co.uk website includes a description of functions, the dynamic relationship between them, and the meaning of the four letter code in dynamic terms.
The temperament theory of David Keirsey (made popular in the book Please Understand Me) uses the same four letter code as Isabel Briggs Myers’ system. However, although they used the same letters, they meant different things, and this article explains the differences.
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