Books on Leadership: Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine C. Briggs developed the world famous Myer Briggs Type Indicator, which is now widely used by most top American companies and is a generally accepted personality typing instrument.
In this book Gift Differing, the authors go in depth into Type Theory and its use in Occupations, Learning Styles and Romance.
What is This Book About?
The Myer Briggs Type Indicator is a development of Carl Jung’s work on personality in his book Psychological Types. In his book, he states that differences in people are not random, in fact; they form patterns. These differences are broken down into 4 dichotomies:
Extroversion-Introversion
This about where we prefer to draw our energy from, whether the external world or the internal world.
Sensing-Intuition
This is about how we prefer to perceive information, whether by our five physical senses or our imagination.
Thinking-Feeling
This is about how we prefer to make decisions, whether by logical and objective process or our personal values and relationships.
Judging-Perceiving
This is about how we orient ourselves to the external world; whether we prefer closure and decision or openness and options.
It is fascinating to understand these differences; you will have many ‘aha!’ moments. You will also see the many times that you had a conflict or a misunderstanding with another person was really due to personality differences.
Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine C Briggs developed the MBTI© because they saw that a lot of differences and unhappiness among people could be resolved if they understood personality and how to bridge it. And reading this book will give you just that.
Besides that, Gifts Differing also goes into the application of the MBTI© in:
- Occupation
- Romance
- Learning Styles
- Personal Development
Through these, you will see that we are very different in our preferences in our jobs, our life partners and even our development path as individuals.
Should You Read This Book?
When I first stumbled upon Personality Types, I saw its potential in helping leaders understand their followers better and most importantly, empowering them by using them in their strength areas.
However, most people who simply read about personality off the websites end up stereotyping people or even use personality as a crutch or an excuse for their behaviour. This is the reason why some people are sceptical about personality and its instruments.
I suggest you read about Personality Types only if you are willing to commit to learn about it and how it is correctly applied in life and leadership. If not, you may just end up using it in a convenient manner, which is often stereotyping people.