‘Guys, I will always have your back’, she said when she became our leader … until she did not.
We all know the stories about how notorious dictators like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein, not only ruled their countries with an iron fist, but had an inner circle of followers that were on the one hand attracted to them and craving for their approval, and on the other hand continuously on their toes, out of fear of falling out of favor and being ‘purged’ as a result. A contemporary example of such a dictator is Kim Jong Un.
Nowadays, we would say these dictators had a ‘dark triad’.
For those not familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the MBTI has been developed by Katherine Briggs (1875-1968) and her daughter Isabel Myers (1897-1980) on the basis of Jung’s Personality (‘Type’) Theory. It enables the categorization of individual personalities in 4 dimensions, resulting in the (well-known) 16 different ‘types’ (e.g., ‘ISTJ’ or ‘ENFP’).
Function
Preference
Preference
Energy
I – Introversion (ideas)
E – Extroversion (people)
Perception
S – Sensing (data)
N – Intuition (intuition)
Judgment
T – Thinking
F – Feeling
Attitude towards outside world
J – Judging
P – Perceiving
Until a decade ago, the MBTI was one of the most popular personality assessment instruments, and, although it is far less popular today than it used to be, it is still extensively (ab)used.
For this reason, I was very curious to read the book. Unfortunately, I found it a mixed bag.
In my previous post about MBTI I stressed the importance to review the outcomes of this personality assessment with clients, to make sure they understand the outcomes and recognize themselves in their type. However, often practitioners become stuck in these reviews if clients do not indicate their preferred behaviors. Although it is tempting for practitioners to try to shoehorn clients into a specific type, doing so is likely the least productive and helpful approach.
Dirk Verburg 