How Do You Come Across To Others?

Throughout history, humans have attempted to explain the differences between them in a lot of different ways. The earliest recorded efforts were found in ancient astrology. Astrology said that the way the heavens were aligned when you were born determined your behavior. Thousands of years ago, the stars were all they had to go on.

Then about 400 B.C., Hippocrates, "the father of medicine," developed the concept of temperaments. He identified four basic temperaments: choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholy. And he said that these were determined by the elements in your body, not the stars outside your body.

Then, in 1923, Dr. Carl Jung wrote Psychological Types, a book in which he described sixteen types then boiled them down to four major ones: the intuitor, the thinker, the feeler, and the sensor. Jung, like his predecessors, found the magic number of four types.

When it was published, Jung’s book was the most scientific work that had been done on personality patterns to date. Since the early twenties, lots of people have developed models of personality type. The well known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is based on the work of Carl Jung. If you’ve been in the business community for very long, chances are you’ve gone to a seminar, heard a speech or read an article about personality types that broke them down into four basic types. Now, it doesn’t matter if you call the four types "sneezy," "dopey," "sleepy," and "doc," there are still four basic types. Call them A, B, C, and D if you want to, but the point is there are different types that exist in everyone; you have all four, and I have all four. But, one of those four is your dominant type.


Let me help you understand a concept of basic behavior. There are two elements of behavior. One of those is called openness, the degree to which someone readily shares feelings, thoughts, and responses. On one end of the scale is high openness. People who are highly open share their information and their feelings readily.

On the opposite end of the scale is low openness. These people don’t usually speak up first and don’t speak without a great deal of consideration. I call this "self-contained" behavior.

The other scale I call "directness." On one end of the scale you see people who are so direct, they’re almost blunt. To make a point, they’d say exactly what’s in their mind. They let you know where they stand on an issue, speak right up and are not at all reluctant to take a position.

On the opposite side of the scale are the indirect people. Indirect people are the kind who are a little more tactful. They are more cautious, waiting to see what develops before acting, or waiting to see where things are headed before becoming involved. They want to see how it goes first. Instead of appearing active they appear passive.

Think about yourself in those two respects, openness and directness. How open do you tend to be most of the time? Depending on the situation, sometimes you might be more open and sometimes you might be more self-contained. Of course you are, that’s called adaptability. But think about the pattern, where’s home base for you? Where’s your natural level? Are you naturally more open, outgoing, spontaneous, or naturally a little more reserved, a little more watchful? Note where your home is on this scale by choosing a 1, 2, 3, or 4 to locate your normal pattern of openness.

As you are thinking about your natural pattern, remember that there is no better or worse. It’s equally okay to be anywhere on the scale. There is no right or wrong; there’s just your nature, your natural pattern.

Now let’s go to the directness scale. The left-hand side of the directness scale would be low directness, that’s behavior that is cautious or tactful. The right hand side of the directness scale is highly direct, that’s where someone speaks up readily, they jump right into things, they tend to take charge.

Which side of that directness scale do you find your home base on? Do you find it on the indirect side or the direct side? On the indirect side would be A or B. A is the least direct, B is the next direct. On the right hand side of the scale is directness, C or D. D is highly direct, C fairly high. Choose a letter to indicate your natural level of directness, your home base.

If you chose both a 1 or a 2 with an A or a B then you are in the lower left corner of that grid, that quadrant is called the thinker behavioral style. The thinker pattern or behavioral style is the style that tends to be indirect and self contained.

Did you choose the thinker pattern? Whenever I see re-runs of the science fiction show, Star Trek, I see Spock, the first officer of the Starship Enterprise, as the most obvious thinker type. Spock had very high logic, definitely was detail-oriented, did not suffer fools lightly, was systematic and thought before he acted. Not at all like Captain Kirk, the director type, who would jump in to any situation boldly, emotions flaring.

If you chose both a 1 or a 2 and a C or a D, then you’ll be in the lower right corner of our grid, along with Mike Wallace, the in-your-face interviewer of TV’s 60 Minutes. That’s the director quadrant, like a director on a movie set. The director is a person who is a take charge type, they measure things by outcomes, they like to get things done and they don’t like to waste time doing a lot of talking as they do it. Directors move quickly and decisively.

If you chose both an A or a B and a 3 or a 4, then you’re in the upper left corner of our grid. That’s called the relater quadrant. The relater pattern or behavioral style is the style that relates most to connecting with other people. The relater is the kind of person who tends to be soft spoken, which comes from their indirectness. They are easy going and very people-oriented (with their high openness they’re naturally drawn to other people), love to be involved in discussions, like to build one-to-one relationships, and people tend to be the center of their work life and their home life.

If you chose both a 3 or a 4 and a C or a D, then you’re style is in the upper right corner of our grid and that’s called the socializer quadrant. That’s the person who is always socializing, always talking; they always have something to say. You get on an elevator with a socializer, and even if you’re total strangers, they’ll still have something to say to you as they strike up a conversation with everyone else on the elevator.

Socializers are the life of the party, They’ve got lot’s of things on their mind, they enjoy interaction, they thrive on connection with people, and they like a lively, direct pace. Picture talk show hosts Rosie O’Donnell, Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno. All three are classic socializer types.

Which of these styles describes you most accurately? The thinker, the relater, the director, or the socializer? You do have all four patterns in you, but one of those patterns is stronger, more dominant, and that’s the pattern most people know you by.

The basic pattern, the dominant quadrant of your behavior, is your way of interacting with the rest of the world. And the reason there’s a pattern to it is that we are designed to be creatures of habit. Habit’s a good thing because it gives us a way to simplify our life. If we have to stop and think about how we’re going to react to everything in great detail every single time, it wastes an awful lot of energy. So what we need is a comfortable pattern of doing things in a natural style that feels right to us.

Irritations

Was one of these descriptions accurate in describing you? Which one? As we proceed, notice how many of the other descriptions seem to fit. The style that has the most consistency with your patterns is your natural style. You’ll identify a little with each, but one will be the most natural fit.

Any time you understand someone else’s behavioral style, you’ll understand how you can best relate to them initially. This is like the tip of the iceberg of personality; it’s the part you see most often. Under the surface, however, there’s a lot more to personality: there’s values, velocity, intellect. But on the surface we see the behavioral style, and if we can learn to quickly identify someone’s style just by noticing their level of openness and their level of directness, then we can figure out how to get into alignment with them early in the relationship.

Here’s a quick summary of some of the characteristics of each of the styles.

The thinker On the good side, thinkers tend to be orderly, precise, conscientious, neat, trustworthy, and careful. On the negative side of the equation, they tend to be a bit fearful, dependent, defensive, traditional, restrained, and non-expressive.

The relater On the good side, relaters tend to be loyal, attentive, patient, mellow, cooperative, pleasant. On the negative side, they tend to be indecisive, immobile, possessive, hesitant, and poor delegators.

The socializer On the good side, socializers tend to be open and trusting, enthusiastic, compelling, optimistic, and charming. On the negative side, they tend to be overly emotional, gullible, superficial, highly talkative, imprecise, and unfocused.

The director On the good side, directors tend to be leaders; they’re good at initiating and they’re competitive, powerful, assertive, confident. On the negative side, they tend to be impulsive, forceful, pushy, inattentive, demanding, and impatient.

Now that you know your natural behavioral style, what do you do with this information? First, understand your nature and know your unique strengths and weaknesses. Next, recognize when your style contributes to a situation or relationship and when it needs to be tempered or restrained. Also think about those three other styles that were not as strong for you and see if there was a secondary style in you that can be nurtured to expand your personality and flexibility.

When the four types are not flexible, they can be the greatest possible irritation to each other. But when they are flexible, they can make a wonderful team. A director takes charge. The socializer sees to it that everybody’s ideas get expressed in the most vivid way and everyone gets heard. The relater sees to it that all the personal needs are attended to and each person feels a part of the group. The thinker sees to it that all the details are handled and everything makes sense.

When people work together in concert, they’re in alignment. Alignment produces harmony, and harmony produces great outcomes.