ISTJ: Working Effectively Together with Others
One of the most important skills necessary for achieving success in one’s career is the ability to work effectively together with other people. From personality type standpoint, it means being able to effectively collaborate and communicate with various personality types. Let’s illustrate communication strategies with various personalities by grouping the 16 personality types into four groups based on the combination the second and third letter in the type name (i.e. ST, NT, SF, NF). The second and third letters in a type name are related to the psychological functions of psyche playing key role in defining person’s behaviour, in accordance with Jungian theory of personality types.
- Your type ISTJ belongs to the ST group. ESTJ, ESTP, and ISTP types as well belong to the ST group. You would likely find it easiest to interact with these four personality types belonging to the ST group because these people perceive the world and evaluate happenings in a similar way as you do.
- The most likely challenging for you to get along with individuals from the NF group composed of ENFJ, INFJ, ENFP, and INFP types. This is because the people in this group are dominated by mental functions of consciousness that are totally opposite to your own. These people perceive the world and evaluate happenings in a starkly different way.
- For tips and personalized advice on most effective ways to interact with other people in the workplace, you are welcome to complete our premium career development assessment available from our PersonalityExplorer.com website. The overview of communication strategies with various personalities is available here.
Conflict Management
Conflict situations are a common and important aspect of the workplace. Different stakeholders may have different priorities; conflicts may involve team members, departments, projects, organization and client, boss and subordinate, organization needs vs. personal needs. Success in the workplace often depends on your ability to manage conflict when it arises. A popular and effective approach to conflict management incorporates five distinct techniques. Each technique has its unique pros and cons its effectiveness depends on the specifics of the situation at hand.
An individual’s most natural behaviour in a conflict is largely conditioned by his or her personality. For example, extroverted feeling types (ENFJ, ESFJ, ENFP, and ESFP) are inclined to openly express their feelings, and therefore they may (quite unexpectedly to them) find themselves in a conflict with their coworkers. Introverted-intuitive-thinking types (INTJ, INTP) are often quite convinced of their own conclusions and ideas, and so have difficulty compromising with people who hold opposing beliefs. Extroverted thinking types (ENTJ, ESTJ, ENTP, ESTP) face conflict situations often for a quite different reason. These people might see the act of compromise as something that jeopardises their authority.
Of course there are also other traits of personality that are responsible for shaping an individual’s response to a conflict - for example, assurance, resourcefulness, empathy, and self-control. Our premium career development assessment determines the likely expressiveness of such traits. The premium career development assessment uses Jung Typology Profiler for Workplace™ (JTPW™), the professional version of Jung Typology test. JTPW™ is offered from our PersonalityExplorer.com website.
Although personality type and natural behavioural traits define the likely behaviour in a conflict, an individual can learn and knowingly apply different techniques for conflict resolution in order to more effectively manage such situations.
After completing the premium career development assessment on PersonalityExplorer.com, you will become aware of the conflict resolution style that is most natural for your personality type and obtain conflict resolution tips and recommendations tailored especially to your personality type. You will also learn about situations in which your natural approach to conflict would be the most appropriate, and situations in which other conflict resolution techniques might work better. For an overview of the five conflict management techniques please click here.
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