Based on the work of Myers-Briggs (Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Briggs) and on the personality classifications formulated by Carl Jung, personality style profiles (PSP) help us understand how our personality type affects the way we approach situations and how we may respond or behave and interact with others.
There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ profiles, it is completely non-judgmental, but understanding how personalities are simply ‘different’ to our own, rather than inconsiderate or wrong, can help us to work together.
What are the practical benefits?
Why display our personality types on our emails?
The inspirational member of the group
The primary characteristic of an ENFP is to focus on things externally, but using their intuition. This is balanced by a secondary, internal mode of thinking, in which things are dealt with depending on how the person feels about them personally.
Of all the personality types, the ENFP is the one most likely to motivate and inspire the rest of the team. Warm, bright and enthusiastic, they live a life of endless possibilities, with the potential to turn round the trickiest of situations.
A worker who can turn their hand to anything
ENFPs are talented, versatile workers with a wide range of skills. Passionate about life and always keen to learn new things, they will perform well at any job which interests them, with the ability to work efficiently with little supervision.
While a typical ENFP may switch careers several times during their working life, they are project-focussed and generally quite consistent in what they do. However, they need to concentrate on following their projects through, as there’s a tendency in some individuals to drop what they’re doing and switch their attention to another exciting project which has grabbed their attention. Although ENFPs have an extraverted personality, they need “time out” to centralise themselves and check that they’re heading in the right direction. The ENFP who is able to focus on the project in hand, rather than drop it in favour of something better, will be a successful member of the team, capable of achieving great things.
The ENFP sees life in terms of exciting new probabilities, and dislikes rigid schedules and routine maintenance tasks, often seeing such things as unimportant. This can be a problem for those they work with. ENFPs perform best in jobs with plenty of flexibility and independence, where they can work with other people’s ideas, rather than those which focus on detailed routine. They dislike being controlled by others, although they are not themselves control freaks.
Independent, with a need to be appreciated
ENFPs are sensitive, cheerful, intuitive people with a genuine interest in others. An ENFP, at any level, is a “people’s person”, who places a lot of emphasis on inter-personal relationships. They have an amazing level of perception, with the ability to understand others in a short space of time and then interact on their level. However, acting on intuition alone can lead to errors of judgement, and ENFPs can be prone to jumping to the wrong conclusion about things they perceive about people and situations.
ENFPs also have a strong need to be liked, and this effort to gain acceptance can come over as cloying and insincere, particularly in younger people. However, once an ENFP has learned to temper this effusiveness, they can become a popular member of staff, with the ability to bring out the best in others.
ENFPs have a strong set of personal values, which remains unchanged throughout their lives – something other staff need to be aware of. While they resist dependence and being controlled they do not seek to control others, although they can be fairly manipulative in getting others to do what they want. However, they rarely abuse this power as it would not be natural to their way of thinking, and can be seen as a positive trait.
A fun-lover prepared to take risks
ENFPs are candid, gregarious, sensitive people who thrive on emotional excitement. Natural risk-takers, they bring a wide spectrum of skills and talents to the workplace and can make great accomplishments within the workplace. However, in order to do this they need to remain focussed on projects and follow them through.