Myers-Briggs and the Big Five Personality Assessments

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In today’s competitive marketplace, companies are looking for every advantage to be the most efficient with the highest customer satisfaction. In order for corporations to achieve this goal, the individual teams and employees must be highly successful. To form highly functioning teams it is important for each team member to understand the goal of the team, how they meet this goal and how the team members interact. To understand how an individual behaves different personality assessments were developed. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate what the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five model personality assessements, why companies use these trait identifiers, and how using these indicators can improve teams and employee happiness.

What are Personality Assessments

Personality affects how and why employees act the way they do, with this information it is important to know an employee’s personality traits and what these traits can indicate. Both the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and the Big Five model for personality assessment are popular based on the relative ease of use and time required to perform. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was first published in 1962 (MBTI Basics, n.d.). Since the first use of this indicator employers have utilized the information obtained to determine a personality type. This personality type can help explain and predict how a person responds to interactions and circumstances with others (Robbins & Coulter, 2009).

The 16 possible personality types described by the Myers-Briggs Indicator are formed from four dimensions: social interaction, preference for gathering data, preference for decision making, and style of decision making. Each of these dimensions offer two person...

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Moffa, M. (n.d.) A critique of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)—Part I: One expert’s review. Retrieved from http://www.recruiter.com/recruiting-news/critique-of-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-critique/

Robbins, S.P. & Coulter, M. (2009) Management (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall

The JHM Consultancy. 2006. Introducing the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Retrieved from http://evaapp.typepad.com/iabcuk/files/introducting_the_mbti.pdf

Watson, C.A. (2008). The relationship and differences between MBTI type, team skills and perceived team success in virtual and traditional teams. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest LLC

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