I've Got Lots of Personality!

By
David A. Berresford

This series of articles is designed to help the reader reflect upon who they are as a person, why they are who they are,

and how their personality impacts upon their relationship to others.

I’ve got lots of personality. Makes me special? Not so much. Every person on the earth has lots of personality, some good, some, not so good. Personality is probably best defined as the complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual; the totality of an individual's behavioral and emotional characteristics; a set of distinctive traits and characteristics. It is the projection of the person and a manifestation of one’s frame of reference.

There are as many models to evaluate your personality as Flintstone has vitamins. They range from the Myers-Briggs to geometric shapes and include such interesting approaches as “What book of the Bible are you?” Even your horoscope, if you are a star gazer, can be considered a personality assessment. In taking one very accurate personality profile test I found out that I was a VIMWIAVHWAWWAGCAG. (Very Intelligent Man Who Is Also Very Handsome With A Wonderful Wife And Great Children And Grandchildren). Sometimes some people skew these evaluations to make them look a certain way. Fortunately, I’m not one of those individuals.

It is beneficial to have a basic understanding of our personality type and the personality types of those with whom we interact. For example and using a geometric profile:

Triangles are decisive people who are able to focus on the goal. They enjoy planning something out and doing it. They look at big long-term issues but sometimes forget the details. They are very much interested in the bottom line and the end result. Unfortunately, they can be egotistical.

Squares are hard workers and like structure and rules. They dislike situations in which they don’t know what’s expected of them. They are logical and think sequentially but never seem to have enough information.

Circles are social and communicative, e.g. no hard edges. They like talking things out and smoothing things over, generally considering the feelings of others. They love harmony, sometimes at the expense of being too easily swayed by the feelings and opinions of other people.

Squiggles are creative and are always thinking of new ways to do things. They don’t like structured environments. Squiggles will travel directly from A to F without any concern for B-E. They are great starters who are easily bored and quickly move to a new idea without closure on the previous one.

Picture putting representatives of each of these personality types on a team. You can imagine an unsympathetic triangle becoming extremely frustrated with a squiggle who will not stay on task in order to reach a specific goal. You can see the squiggle’s frustration with the triangle because he/she will not listen to a “great idea.” The squares are gathered figuring how to get from A to B and evaluating the resources they have to accomplish the task. The circle is smiling uncomfortably saying, “Group hug, group hug.”

In taking a personality test we must do so with caution. Regardless of the quality of the assessment it can be affected by such things as the type of day you are having and the setting in which you take the test. We should also guard against a personality profile becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. And remember, most of us like to believe that our personality type is superior to others. We should also realize that our personal projection is affected by our environment. How we behave at work is not necessarily the way we behave at home, at church, or shopping at the local supermarket. Then again, this discrepancy may be reflective of specific personality types.

Neither this article nor the subsequent ones will address the myriad of personality assessments. We will be addressing the difference between introverts and extroverts and situationalists and absolutists. These are two areas that significantly affect your relationship to others in all settings, including school, church, business, and in your personal life. The latter impacts greatly on an individual’s world view.