Monday, April 20, 2009

Leadership Class

So this week, and a second week in May, I am in this Leadership class called "Leadership & Organizational Effectiveness." Its part of my developmental assignment. Anyway today was the first day of the class. Before this week we had to do numerous self assessments online. Basically a bunch of surveys asking the same questions in different ways. It was a pain in the butt, but I'm so glad we did that. They are pretty pricey evaluations but tell you sooo much about yourself and your professional and personal 'preferences' and traits.

Today we went over our "MBTI Indicators" These are Preferences that you tend to, not really charateristics per say. Anyway, it really tells you a lot about yourself and what you tend to like.

So I am: ENTJ - which stands for Extraversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Judging. I got a bunch of pages about the preference and what it means so I'll just share a little bit of it. This is all quoted from, Otto Kroeger Associates, "Type Talk at Work", 1992/1988.
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ENTJ's are Life's Natural Leaders

For the ENTJ, all life unfolds through confrontation, arguing, and engaging with one another in the name of learning.

The special combination of preferences gives this type the right mixture of basic leadership qualities: enthusiasm, vision, objectivity, and accountability. So natural are these qualities that it is almost difficult for an ENTJ not to step in and take charge.

An ENTJ might listen to another's tale of woe with genuine empathy, then moments later say something totally unrelated and seemingly uncaring; it's not that the ENTJ doesn't care, it's just that having gotten the problem out and "solved" it is time to move on.

ENTJs pride themselves on their independance.

ENTJs biggest drawbacks are their arrogance, their impatience, and their insensitivity. Their objectivity and love for the abstract provides them with a healthy amount of intellectual competence; they usually do well in academic pursuits.

They make excellent teachers, CEOs, and strategists. Their inquisitiveness makes them natural scientists, lawyers, and journalists.

[ENTJ] learn by challenging any authority or source.
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I just think its amazing, it really explains a lot of things about me that people may not understand. Of course not everything is spot on (There were pages and pages of info, I just picked the parts that really stood out to me - actually that was my 'homework' tonight). I agree with the negatives as well as what I perceive to be positives (but maybe others would see as negatives).

I really see that this class will help me in my professional life as well as my personal life. I have a few more assessments and when I get them maybe I'll share.

1 comment:

Rachel L said...

enlightening and I do agree with the assessment. These are fun. We used to study how the Myers-Briggs personality test is designed and I found mine to be accurate as well- maybe I'll post it and link back here...