ENTP or ESTJ
Started the new year spending a bit of time on myself… getting to know myself… and reacquainting myself to what I have already known. Yup. It was “check my personality type” kind of day. I engaged in numerous survey questionnaires online to see how data banks would describe my strengths, personality type, and colour. I’ve taken the Discover Your Strengths questionnaire a few times over the last 10 years. My results have changed over time. At this point in time, my strengths are strategic, futuristic, arrangement, belief, and command. My colour… depending on test… is yellow/red, orange, and red. And, my Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) type is ENTP.
The first time I was introduced to MBTI was during my master degree program in 1999. My instructor Dr. Carolyn Mamchur was passionate about MBTI and got everyone in our cohort to complete the survey questionnaire. The course was about teaching and learning styles. She connected the course content to Myers-Briggs. This made a lot of sense to me. When I was teaching, I would see a colleague of mine sitting on the couch with her students crying over a paper. I thought I was broken. I never cried. I thought something was wrong with me. Nope. We were different teachers. I was an ESTJ. My colleague must have been an ENFJ. She was good. I was not her. Understanding my preferences helped me to understand my practice.
I’ve held onto MBTI to help me understand myself and others. Since leaving teaching, my focus and values shifted. My goal was to complete my dissertation and learn more about BC education. When I was teaching, I valued structure, security, and predictability. As a writer, researcher, and edu-explorer… I value innovation, creativity, and flexibility. It took some time to shift my preferences. I’m about 50-50 with intuition (N) and sensing (S) and 60-40 perceiving (P) to judging (J). I need to be creative but practical as a workshop facilitator and I need to go with the flow being self-employed. What hasn’t changed is my extroversion (E) and my thinking (T) preferences. Yup. I love being around people and I’m always using my noggin. Expressing my feelings (F) and being introverted (I) are not my strengths.
According to MTBI, we do change preferences over time… much like my top five strengths did in Discovering Your Strengths. This could be a sign of growth, but also could be a means to an end. When I was in the classroom, I needed to be organized, structured, and predictable. Now, I am a researcher, writer, curriculum developer, and school trustee. Yes, I still value and need structure, process, and goals… but I also need to be a problem solver, creator, and innovator. I’m on the fence with N/S and P/J with my Myers-Briggs that I’m sure that the other will be a preference once again if the circumstances require it to be. It’s nice to know that I am evolving and I love how these tests can give me some indication as to why things are the way they are.