Before we get to that, what do we mean by Personality? Most think of personality as a combination of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that make a person unique. We humans are fascinated with trying to understand ourselves and our behaviors by classifying, defining, and describing our personalities. For example, I bet you know your astrological sign and long ago decided how much it describes you (or does not).
The notion of Personality has been around for a long time; found as far back as in the writings of ancient historical figures like Hippocrates and Lao Tzu over two thousand years ago. Since those times, there have been many different models, theories and definitions of personality and assessments based on those theories. For example, the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment, is based on Psychologist, Carl Jung’s theory of personality.
In today’s language, when we psychologists refer to someone’s personality, we’re usually talking about the relatively consistent behavioral tendencies of that person. For example, if we say a person is extraverted (or scores high on the personality trait called Extraversion), we mean that they tend to behave in ways that we think are extraverted: to be gregarious, assertive, active, and talkative. Again, it doesn’t mean that they are never quiet or never sit still; it’s just more likely they will exhibit “extroverted” behaviors we associate with Extraversion. The flip side is also true: If someone scores at the low end of the Extraversion scale (in other words, we’d describe them as being “introverted”), we’re not saying that they are unable to, or would never “work a room,” talk in front a crowd, etc..
Tools like DiSC and the Myers Briggs can be interesting but today, the model of personality that has the most impressive body of research supporting it has five factors, and has the (not-very-creative) name of, the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality. The five factors of the FFM are:
- Emotional Stability – high scorers tend to be secure, hardy, and able to deal with stress
- Extraversion – high scorers tend to be outgoing, active and enthusiastic
- Openness – high scorers tend to be open to new experiences and have broad interests
- Agreeableness – high scorers tend to be compassionate, good natured and eager to cooperate
- Conscientiousness – high scorers tend to be well organized, have high standards and to be dependable.
Where do you think you fit? How do you think most successful entrepreneurs score on these five factors?
