Know Thy Personality Panache's

It is wisdom to know others; It is enlightenment to know one's self.

- Lao-Tzu

Where ever you go, as long as you know about yourself , you can manage any situations. There is a parable saying "A very large croc could very well overpower a lion in deep water", where as in dry land the crocodile is as handicapped as a boat without a sails in a stormy sea. Life presents us many challenges throughout our life and its up to us how we choose to face it. And when we know ourself to some extent , our strengths, our weakness, we can adapt ourself to the situation so that we play according to our strengths and improvise our weakness. Good leaders learn their specific personal strengths and weaknesses, especially in dealing with other people, then build on the strengths and correct the weaknesses.


Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist & an influential thinker, who had prescribed the Jungian psychology, where he classifes people based on their personality types. We had a soft skill session wherein based on our responses to the predetermined questions, the nature of our personality type is determined. The major of them are of 4 types. They are: Intuitor,Feeler,Thinker and Sensor. Now, i will give a brief idea about each one of the personality types.

Intuitor: Intuitor, as the name suggest is someone who intuits a lot. Such people are very creative and are original in their ideas. They are quite dreamy (Not the dreams in Night, but Day-Dream ), and are mostly lost in the world of their own.

Feeler: Feeler is someone who values relationship the most. They are very empathetic and loyal and they are concerned about how other people consider them . They always take care while dealing with people, lest they shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings( feelings of people who they like).
Thinker: Thinker are those types who are very rational and are analytic in their approach. They consider everything in an objective manner. They are concerned about details a lot and want facts and figures to get them convinced about something.

Sensor: Sensor, are those kind of people who are action oriented.They are generally competitive and are confident and assertive. They are similar to thinker in the way that, they are objective, and have a regard for facts and figures to base their decision rather than jumping blindly in to something. They are practical in their approach.

Answering your question as to why I'am describing all this and how useful it will for anyone, a little insight into people's personality types will help us get along with others. Once we understand what type the other person is, one can comprehend as to why a person is behaving in a particular manner.

When someone considers other as Greedy or selfish, its because from his point of view, he thinks the other person is greedy. Whereas some other person might have a completely different view. each personality types has his/her strengths and weakness. Understanding them will enable us to see their point of view and accordingly arrive at a consensus. So in a project or any other situation, where we are expected to work as a group, assigning each person roles which complements his personality type will ensure that his 100% talent is utilized.

Being working in a software industry, i will be a bit selfish and take an example of a software Project scenario. Suppose a project has to be finished within a particular deadline, if a person who is a feeler is given the job of analyzing and estimating the project requirements, we can very well imagine how efficiently he can do the work. If the same job is done by a Thinker, his natural inclination to find and have the facts will result in proper analyzing of the project estimates. (Its not as if Feelers cant do analysis, its just that person who is more Thinker-oriented will be more accurate in his projections.)


Also in a family, if the husband is a Sensor, and the wife is a feeler, if both of them understands each other type , they can adjust within themselves because they can understand as to why the other person behaves in a particular way. The well known case is, when husband/wife are leaving to a party, the wife spends ages getting ready for the party,(assuming she is a feeler, and the husband , a sensor, who is more action-oriented, no doubt he will be furious about this... The wife will be much concerned about how the party guest may perceive her and will spend hours on beautifying herself,whereas the husband will have no clue as to why and what is causing the delay. I just quoted this on a funnier note, yet there might be countless situations where we get wild with some because what we assume as the other person's stubborness might be his personality style itself.

Quoting Hans Bender ,

The core of my personality consists of many selves.

Like wise each individual is a composite mixture of many different personality types.as in the Personality Types overlaps.For eg, a person may be a mixture of Intuitor,Feeler,Sensor and Thinker. The degree to which he showcases each of the types may vary accordingly. Its a fact that a person can strengthen or improve one's particular personality by consciously working on it.

Well, my main point in sharing this article , I would like to have Marilyn vos Savant saying to explain that:

“Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses”