Match Your Personality With Your Job (Article 7)

You'll do your best work when your personality and your job's personality are aligned

By Anne H. Whitaker, M.S., J.D.

This is the seventh in a series of articles exploring the Eight Critical Success Factors [1] necessary to create a Personal Vision for a fulfilling, happy career. If you’re new to the series, you may want to take a look at my previous Articles 1 - 6.

Who You Are Is More Important Than What You Do

Who are you? This isn’t a rhetorical question—I’m really asking you who you are. If you’re saying to yourself, “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a husband,” you’re answering only part of the question. What you do—your role in life, how you earn your living—is but one component of your identity. Figuring out what makes you tick is a complicated and important task, perhaps the most important one. Most of us are so caught up in the daily stress cycle that we haven’t focused on this question—or if we have, the treadmill of our busy lives has taken us far away from the answer. But the answer remains critical if you want to create a meaningful, energizing and exciting career.

Personality Is Your Unique Way Of Being In The World

In addition to Abilities, Values, Interests and Skills (which we have explored in previous articles), Personality is a big part of who you are. In fact, your personality pattern is having a huge impact on your life at this moment, whether you know it or not. What do I mean by personality? Think of it as your personal style, your way of being, the sum total of your preferences, and your unique patterns of interacting with the world.

People have been thinking about personality for a long time: the ancient Greeks, for instance, believed that each individual is born with one of four distinct temperaments. Building on that concept, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory of personality in the 1920s called “psychological types.” Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers created a practical application for Jung’s model—the MBTI? (Myers- Briggs Type Indicator) [2], a detailed test instrument to measure psychological type which has been refined and improved over the years.

Understand The Components Of Personality

You’ve probably heard of and/or taken some version of the MBTI as it is often administered by schools, companies, and law firms. This test measures a person’s preferences or temperament by using four basic scales:

? extroversion vs. introversion (E/I)

? sensate vs. intuitive (S/N)

? thinking vs. feeling (T/F)

? judging vs. perceiving (J/P)

The various combinations of these preferences result in 16 personality types expressed by their corresponding letters such as “ENFP” or “ISTJ.” Each type has its own interests, strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots, and some career fields and job descriptions attract more of some types than others.

This doesn’t mean that every ENFP is alike. Human beings are much more complex than that. But people with a particular type do have some basic characteristics in common that predict how they behave and what they prefer.

Life Is Change, But Your Personality Stays Constant

Many people think that personality is flexible and changes over time, depending on their environment or perhaps how much therapy they have had. It is true that you can learn new, more effective ways of behaving and interacting with people and even “unlearn” old, stifling patterns of behavior that hold you back. It’s also true that you may act differently at work than at home. Nevertheless, your basic temperament or personality, unlike your job or roles, remains the same throughout your life.

Skeptical? Do the following experiment. Write your name on a piece of paper. Now write your name with your opposite hand. How did it feel when you used your preferred hand? It probably felt natural, effortless, and easy. But when you used your non-preferred or non-dominant hand, it probably felt slow, uncomfortable, and tiring. Of course you can practice writing with your non-dominant hand to improve your skill , but your basic preference for your dominant hand will never change. The same is true for your personality type.

Are You A Listener Or A Talker?

Now let’s look at the first and perhaps most well-known dimension of personality type: Extroversion/Introversion. This dimension relates to how we interact in the world and where we get our energy.

See if this description of an extrovert applies to you: You enjoy being with people; it energizes you. You like to talk with people a lot during the work day; in fact, you talk more than you listen, preferring to discuss problems out loud with coworkers and friends. You seek out others, needing them to recharge and feel connected especially at the end of a hard day. You enjoy going to the grocery store or mall because you may run into someone you know, and love parties where you can work the room. What you don’t like is feeling isolated or being stuck in a structured environment.

On the other hand, maybe you’re the kind of person who needs time to yourself on a regular basis. You tend to be quiet and methodical, preferring to think ideas through before discussing them with others; in fact, you listen more than talk. When you do talk with others you get to the point quickly—though you’d almost always rather send an email than have a conversation. You want meetings to have a purpose and defined time limit, and you don’t enjoy brainstorming. At the end of an exhausting day, you need to go home and relax by reading or watching TV (anything but talking.) For you, a trip to the store is for one purpose only: to get what you need and get out. Spending long periods of time with many people in business or social situations feels like work and leaves you feeling drained.

For Most Of Us, Personality Is A Mixture Of Traits

Do you recognize yourself? I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t: both examples above are pretty extreme. In reality, even the most outgoing extrovert enjoys being alone at times and the most extreme introvert wants to be with people sometimes. But everyone has a natural preference for one over the other; it’s a question of which you prefer more often, or if you are midrange on both.

If you’re more introvert than extrovert, you’re in good company: the majority of lawyers are introverts. In fact, one study showed that 57 percent of lawyers are introverts, compared to 25 percent of the general public. [3] Preferring introversion doesn’t mean that you don’t like to litigate, do public speaking, or be with people. It just means you need more alone time to reflect on things than someone who prefers extroversion. Also, you may be midrange on both, which means that you have more choice about your interpersonal environment. If you are a combination, you need to make sure you have a good balance between being with others and being by yourself.

Match Your Personality With Your Job’s Personality

Now that you have a sense of who you are, think about where you work. Is your office quiet or noisy? Are you expected to do your best work with others or by yourself? Do you know what’s on your agenda each day or is your schedule a work in progress?

Angela, for example, works in a busy office where she’s expected to make herself available to her colleagues and clients. She counsels, advises and interacts with people all day long. Because she’s an extrovert, she thrives in this environment. Attending impromptu meetings, thinking on her feet—these activities make her feel alive. Larry, on the other hand, looks forward to coming to work at his quiet office where each attorney is granted a full measure of privacy and autonomy. An introvert, he closes his doors and spends his day poring over documents, researching and writing. When he does meet with clients, he gets right down to business. He likes meetings to be scheduled in advance and attends each with a list of goals or issues to discuss.

Angela and Larry are lucky—their work environments match their temperaments. But what if they were to switch jobs? Angela would feel as if she were crawling the walls sitting in an office by herself; Larry would spend every moment feeling anxious and drained.

Clearly, to have a rewarding and satisfying career you need to make sure that your personality matches your work environment. The right job will allow you to be who you are and will suit the way you like to do things naturally. Otherwise, you’ll feel like a right-handed person who’s asked to write with her left hand. Nothing will feel effortless. You’ll be working against your natural preferences instead of working in concert with them.

Assess Other Dimensions Of Your Personality

Remember that extroversion/introversion is just one of the four dimensions of personality; getting the other three dimensions into alignment with your work life is just as important.

To assess your natural strengths and inclinations or “personality type,” I recommend you take the MBTI, preferably the newer MBTI-Step 2. While it is not perfect (the test consists of subjective questions and is self-reporting,) it is perhaps the most widely recognized and validated assessment available for testing personality type. I suggest you work with a career counselor or coach who has experience interpreting the MBTI for lawyers.

In addition to the MBTI, you can read one of the many books on personality type and temperament, or take an online “mini quiz” to help you determine your temperament. While these are quick and fun to take and you may learn something about your personal style, they are not as thorough as the MBTI and have not been validated by research.

Strive For Goodness Of Fit

Next time we will look at the eighth and final Success Factor—your Goals. In the meantime, take time to get to know yourself better and learn more about your personality preferences. And then try to align your work role with your work environment so that you’re working with your natural tendencies, not fighting them. This way, you’ll allow who you are to be a positive force in your work life.

As Isabel Briggs Myers said, “Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire.”

NOTES: 1. McDonald, Bob, Ph.D., and Hutcheson, Don, E., Don’t Waste Your Talent: The 8 Critical Steps to Discovering What You Do Best, The Highlands Company, 2005. 2. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). If you are not certified to administer this assessment, or not working with a career counselor or coach who is, you can contact capt.org or myersbriggs.org. 3. This survey is discussed in the articles “The Lawyer Types: How Your Personality Affects Your Practice,” Lawrence R. Richard, ABA Journal, July 1993 and "Psychological Type and Job Satisfaction Among Practicing Lawyers in The United States," Lawrence R. Richard, 29 Capital University Law Review 979, 988 n.34 (2002).

Anne Whitaker is an executive and career coach for legal professionals and has worked with individuals and groups for over 30 years. A former practicing attorney, educator and business owner, Anne combines her legal experience, coach training and expertise, and business acumen to assist her clients in achieving their career and life goals. Anne is also well known for her speaking, writing and facilitating. She has created, chaired and presented more than 20 programs on attorney career development topics for associations, law firms and corporations. Her articles on lawyer career-related topics have appeared in local and national lawyer publications.  

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