Leadership approach for an introverted team with Myers-Briggs diversity

Leadership Plan

The current learning team has a membership with different personality types within it. It is important for each member to not only understand their own personality type and preferences, but also the other members of the group's personality profiles and their implications. Using this approach our team has collected information on each individual's personality profiles. In our group of four, two of our members actually have identical profiles, Marcus and I, and three out of the four are introverted; Douglas is the only extravert. This brief analysis will consider the individual profiles of the group's members and then recommend a leadership approach that can ensure success for the group in the future.

Personality Profiles

INFP -- Markus and Me (The Myers & Briggs Foundation, N.d.)

Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.

INTP - Brandon (The Myers & Briggs Foundation, N.d.)

Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

ENTJ - Douglas (The Myers & Briggs Foundation, N.d.)

Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas.

Evaluation & Discussion of the Personality Profiles

Having only one extravert in the group will make some decisions much easier. For example, Douglas will most likely be the one to assume a leadership position based on the personality profile analysis. It is also likely that the extraverted personality will be the one that speaks for the group in reporting or presentation scenarios most frequently. Given the fact that there is only one extravert will make a lot of the decisions of about the different roles much easier because the extraverted personality is better suited to certain situations such as leadership and presenting ideas.

The fact that two of the individuals in the group have personalities that are associated with "idealism" could also provide certain implications for the group. Whereas the other group members may be more pragmatic in their decision making processes, the idealist will most likely try to stick to their guns. Given the fact that there are two of these personalities in a group of four members, this could skew the entire decision making process. For example, if the two INFPs agree strongly on a particular decision then it could be hard to the other members to reason with them for a more pragmatic solution. Therefore, it would be prudent to outline a mechanism that could counter the two INFPs if such a situation arises and this should be defined beforehand so that there is no confusion when it actually happens.

Another interesting aspect to the group's composition is that all four members prefer the intuitive approach rather than the sensing approach. Intuition is defined as:

"Paying the most attention to impressions or the meaning and patterns of the information I get. I would rather learn by thinking a problem through than by hands-on experience. I'm interested in new things and what might be possible, so that I think more about the future than the past. I like to work with symbols or abstract theories, even if I don't know how I will use them. I remember events more as an impression of what it was like than as actual facts or details of what happened." (The Myers & Briggs Foundation, N.d.)

This will most likely translate into the fact that the group is somewhat devoid of a detailed oriented focus. The group as a whole will likely focus on patterns rather than details and this should also be addressed before hand with some kind of organizational mechanism to ensure that any specific details of the project are delegated and held accountable by the group.

One last notable mention in regard to the group composition will be that Douglas will be the only "judging" orientation in the group while the other members lean towards the "perceiving" end of the spectrum. This coupled with the fact that Douglas is the only extravert will likely lead to a situation in which Douglas plays a leadership role that also helps facilitate group decision making. Since Douglas has two unique personality traits in the group it will make his role in the group that much more important to keep the group on track and to provide a balance among the personality profiles.