MBTI Use in the Road to Becoming A CEO: Professional Development and Training

D. Paul
D. Paul
Aug 22, 2017 · 7 min read
The Road to CEO or Your Personal Version of Success

Sometimes I eat at McDonalds. To be fair, they have started using more natural ingredients and have improved their presentation and customer service tenfold over the last few years. Recently, while waiting for an order of sausage breakfast wraps, I observed a store manager chastising an employee for what I thought to be a trivial situation. As I mentioned, it was breakfast hours and thus, there was the expected morning rush that comes along with it. The two staff members were working their butts off, moving as fast as they could to keep up with the demand. Impatient, the manager decides to pick this moment to scold them about the not more than the five pieces of french fries on the floor.

Is our approach causing undue stress?

Aside from a messy floor, the manager is a decent manager in that she can manage the store and direct the employees. This alone does not make her a great manager. To be a great manager she needs to learn to effectively communicate with her staff and also actively demonstrate McDonalds’s best practices. Simply telling a staff member that the floor is messy assumes that employees understands the full task at hand. I am not saying that the staff member does not know how to clean a floor but does they understand how the full task process looks like at McDonalds, which is dufferent from that of their homes? Here are questions employees might ask themselves: Where is the mop located? Where is the broom located? Which is more appropriate in this circumstance? When is an appropriate time for me to leave my post get the broom and/or mop. Should I ask for permission to get the broom or should I take initiative? I doubt that the answers to these questions have even been shown, or at the very least, communicated to the staff. Managers across the board seem to believe that a 2 week training or on-boarding process is sufficient. They could not be more wrong.

In fact, the McDonalds’s manager may be shooting herself in the foot. Is she micromanaging or is she giving her staff enough leeway to make mistakes understanding that they will be better for it in the long run? Has she encouraged them to ask questions in unsure situations? The crux of the situation is that many managers do not have enough self-awareness. She may know herself well, but does she know herself well and in relation to others? Does she understand that her natural strengths may be the areas of weakness for her employees, but that her employees also have strengths that she can learn from to improve her craft?

Seeing Outside of Ourselves

From past experiences in different organizations as an employee and from what I observed that day, I imagine that organization and cleanliness are innate talents of hers. I would guess that from early on, she instinctively knew how to manage her surroundings and that she may have come off as “bossy” to her peers. She did not have to rely on her parents or schooling to learn these traits. In sum, the McDonald’s manager does not realize that her staff members may have not been properly schooled on the importance of organization and cleanliness for both presentation and sanitation purposes, a probable pet peeve of the manager as it comes so easy for her.

Comfort Levels for this Type of Mess Based on Inherent Biology

I myself am not a naturally organized person and as I am not an official stakeholder in McDonald’s affairs, the messiness in the picture above would not bother me. That said, I have learned to ingrain organization into my life and understand that it makes life a little easier for all when I am. However, when stressors present themselves, do not come into my bedroom especially if you have similar mindsets to the McDonalds manager. (The key is to learn to remain calm in pressured situations.)

Myers–Briggs Type Indicator

When I first found out about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI, I was, to say the very least, intrigued. I am an “oddball,” I guess you could say I am weird, but I truly enjoy my quirks, though others may not. I have had the privilege to have traveled all over the United States and also to different parts of the world. I did not understand why many others were not like me, in there “adventurousness.” The MBTI helped me to understand myself and others more objectively. Exploring my surroundings and thinking outside of the box comes easier for me than most. In stressful situations (stressors are different for everyone), I may gravitate to my more esoteric thinking style, when in reality, practical approaches are most needed in these situations. I am learning.

The MBTI, is a personality profiler derived from a theory based on Carl Jung’s initial psyche observations which were later expounded on by Myers Briggs. She claims that there are different personality types and that people who share profile types have similar ways of viewing and navigating the world. This does not mean that two people who have the same core profile, are the same, for there are a lot of outside factors such as culture that contribute to personality. Yet, their patterns of thinking may be the same.

MBTI As An Enabler

So what? Human Resources of many companies do use the MBTI. However the question becomes, how are they using it? From my understanding, HR departments use these assessments as a way to help place employees. The issue with this is that the personality profile becomes a crutch. Example: At core, I am an “Extroverted Intuitive Feeler Perceiver” (ENFP) type and I have many are my strengths and weaknesses, objectively speaking. Thus, the current popular idea is that I should definitely go into roles that suit my natural talents. I will enjoy a lot of “success” in these roles because they play to my strengths. (Let’s not actually go into my personality profile right now. If you are interested in learning more about your profile type, check out Heidi Priebe’s witty yet knowledgeable MBTI types).

Fixed Mindset

The problem with that approach is that the MBTI is used as a crutch, limiting our full potential as people. This approach promotes the fixed mindset. The fixed mindset is the mentality that you are only good at a few things and through experiences you can master those processes and become experts in those few areas. I.e, the hardworking staff at McDonalds will continue to be the hard working employees, and will become like expert fry cooks, like SpongeBob SquarePants, nothing more, nothing less. (And perhaps they will pass these talents onto their children…let’s not go into generational poverty now). The McDonalds’s manager will continue to be clean and organized which will make her an excellent boss, excuse me, make her and “excellent manager” who comes off as bossy.

Growth Mindset

The growth mindset is the mentality that you can be successful in any area by taking old skills and applying them to any new function being learned. Furthermore, one with a growth mindset understands and is aware of the supports they need to learn effectively and ensures that these supports are present in the new learning environment. The growth mindset does not celebrate perfection, rather, it encourages learning at the risk of making limited mistakes.

Let’s go back to McDonalds. The boss could use some coaching, and perhaps the coaching she needs may be able to come from her staff if she allows them the authority and encourages them to speak their minds. This may initially cause conflict but if both parties are patient, they will learn to see each others perspective and find an agreeable middle ground.

If the staff are taught how to organize and clean properly, (this is an investment in time and requires tact), they will now gain managerial skills alongside side their hard work ethics. Furthermore, if the manager was a “hardworker,” she would have had a DIY, “do it yourself” attitude, and cleaned up the fries herself, which would have been more effective than yelling at her staff. If the boss loosens up and with guidance, allows her staff room to use their own judgments, she could take the time to teach the employee how to clean and become more organized. In turn, the staff members will becomes workers who not just work hard, but who work smarter.

Instead of raising her voice at the messiness, the McDonalds store manager can use it as a “teachable moment”: alerting the staff to the mess when she first notices it, having her staff make note of her waiting for a lull in the in the traffic, and verbally and physically explaining to her staff how to clean up the mess and what do when finished. In learning to teach other staff members her strength of organization, not only does she become a better communicator, but her store will basically learn to run itself. If her staff is trained to have the growth mindset, they will be able to pick up on other tasks that are not necessarily in their job duties but that need to be done. The “that’s not my job” statement is outdated.

The growth mindset helps with efficiency as the employees have become initiators, and the manager no longer has to raise her voice at her staff but she can relax and take care of more serious matter, such as paper work and compliance issues.

Managers are Suppose to Be Happy

Her franchise goes on to become the number one store in the district, then state, and so on; her recognition earns her a promotion to corporate, and one day, she may even become CEO. What about the store? Not to worry, remember the hard working staff who learned managerial skills, they become the new shift and store managers and the cycle repeats itself…

With the growth mindset, everyone wins. It is a bumpier beginning but in the long run, smooth trails.

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