Psychological Types #3 : "COACHING TEAMS, LEADERS & CHANGE"

We explore the 2,500 history of this holistic framework, dating back to Greek times, revisited in the 1920s, and brought back into prominence these days to help people get at core needs, values, talents, and typical behaviors.

The downloads include a summary of temperament, 1-page descriptions of each temperament, and supporting visuals like "shapes and shadows".

Improvisers handle crisis situations. They enjoy adapting to the moment, freedom to act now, making an immediate impact, opportunity, and daily variety.

Stabilizers support day-to-day continuity. They work to uphold long-standing traditions, duty and obligations, group membership, safety and security, and structure and stability.

Theorists innovate tools and ideas. They strive for knowledge, competence, expertise, self-mastery, progress, concepts, models and methods, and objective principles.

Catalysts inspire human potential. They quest for authentic interaction, deep significance, a unique identity, personal and human meaning, and ethics.

Let's look at some simple case studies. Given two people in the same profession, but different work styles, can you guess--and adjust to or leverage--their temperament core needs and values? 

The download is used in the upcoming assignment right after this.

Really, temperament could be a whole course in itself. If you want to know more, take a look at the downloadables.  You will get some direction to explore these in the upcoming assignment right after this.

The downloads include a creative writing activity, a technical activity, suggestions around martial arts, relationship advice, and the CTA, or "College Temperament Assessment", a quick survey to help assess temperament among friends, family members, and others.

Essential resources to explore elsewhere include two keystone books, "Please Understand Me" by Keirsey and Bates, and "Exploring Essential Motivators" by Berens.

There are 4 interaction styles with each temperament, resulting in 16 types. This model was born over a century ago, has a rich history of uses, and was tweaked by Linda Berens for use with temperament and type.

The downloads include a summary of interaction styles and an article on the "Roots and Branches" that puts interaction styles into the larger story of Type.

The 4 styles are In Charge (InC), Chart the Course (CtC), Get Things Going (GtG), and Behind the Scenes (BtS). We look at their typical qualities, how they influence others, how they view people, and their underlying agenda.

The download "things in common" shows what each style has in common with the others, which is helpful when sorting between between styles.

Let's look at some simple case studies. Given two people in the same profession, but different work styles, can you guess--and adjust to or leverage--their interaction style? 

The download is used in the upcoming assignment.

Really, interactions styles could be a whole course in itself. If you want to know more, take a look at these books and resources (by other authors) including the classic: "Emotions of Normal People".

One download is a Type Table that shows the relationships between temperament, interaction styles, and the 16 types, all in one place. The other download are 8 "learning style" descriptions that highlight how Directing vs. Informing plays a big role in personality.

You can use a type matrix as a teams chart. As you best to know the types of people you work with, you will likely notice biases in your workplace, family and friendship circles, and so forth.

Let's explore 9 leadership behaviors: Trust, Care, Openness, Learning, Giving Feedback, Speaking Up, Teamwork, Managing Dilemmas, and Creativity. These are based on extensive research.

For each of the 16 types, you will find typical talents and challenges as well tips for each of the 9 leadership behaviors. BTW, later you will get a case study for one type: ESTP.

We can build rapport by eliciting and listening for people's values. Often, these are under the surface. By acknowledging the values, even when quite different, we show trust, care, and openness.

We can be more effective. We can move away from analyzing others' supposed intentions, wondering how to support, block or pathologize those. Instead, we can focus on impact (aka behaviors, consequences, and  results).

Surprise! The 9 leadership behaviors link to the 9 points of the popular enneagram model. And the advice you saw for each of the 16 types is based on temperament and interaction styles.

Hear from a clinical psychologist how he uses type and the enneagram with a variety of clients to reveal a truer self, resolve communication issues, deal with issues in romantic relationships, and so on.

Anya is a playwright and theatre director. Let's listen in as Anya talks about how she deals with problems in general, what to do when she feels lonely or bored, and how she responds when her ideals hit up against reality.

Main points:

1) When problems arise for her, either move on or look back and notice a lesson. This can be painful but marvelous to learn something new.

2) When she feels lonely or bored, broadly, she can act to change the situation, or get help from a friend, or even create some background input (TV show, etc.). It's important to be sincere.

3) For her, when her ideals hit up against reality: when there's no universal answer, it can be frustrating or heart-breaking, and it takes time to emotionally digest and make peace with it. Then it's chance to find an alternate way.

Anya continues to reflect on what leadership means for her. We cover common challenges with coworkers. For example, what does she do when someone is really problematic? How does she address people's values? And what if someone has a negative (or complimentary) view of her?

Main points:

1) When a coworker is really problematic, she might go to HR, but overall she does not want to create a personal conflict. To address the person, she would likely start with a compliment and name their contributions.

2) She believes it's possible to figure out others' values when they speak, but she also believes that it's often not actually necessary to figure out or address values.

3) When someone views her negatively: She replies that this depends on the situation, we might just shrug and move on, or may stay open to and consider feedback. This is walking a fine line.

Anja reflects on how we manages dilemma, maybe finding a creative solution.

Main points:

1) In the face of dilemmas, she relies on her inner compass, and she accounts for others' interests, and also balances that with her own sense of safety. Of course, it's not always possible to satisfy everyone. That's the way it is.

2) She talks about her creative process and how other people rely on her vision. She feels that she can't know what's specifically best for others as individuals and it's their responsibility to tell her.

3) When someone gossips or create dramas, and that's their behavioral pattern, she tries to be straight up as possible. If someone has a real problem, they can (should) just tell her.

Anya offers some general take-aways, reflecting back on her answers and her personality type self-discovery process.

Main points:

1) It's possible to explain ourselves to others how we work, deal with our personal challenges (such as time management), and manage complexity from the inside, from within ourselves.

2) Of course, nobody can be so responsible for others, but we can improve how we work together when the situation allows. We can create an atmosphere where people feel safe and valuable and can be themselves.

3) Overall, advocates being open to useful relationships. She reflects, "if I am open to change, I can create a healthy useful relationship". She can be very resource-able.

We can "prime" people to help them better understand and engage different aspects of themselves. This is a conscious process to encourage familiarity, appreciation and growth.

Often, it is all too easy to respond in a lazy way that is ultimately unsatisfying and unproductive. Instead, there are other options. We take a look, following the 4 functions.

How can we encourage a "growth mindset" rather than a "static" or defeatist mindset? Through a series of questions, the person can practice growth as well as systems thinking.

In many ways, this is a "creativity" exercise. But the word creativity comes with a lot of baggage. We can bypass preconceptions by focusing on how people of all types can bring in ideas (new and neglected) from either inside or outside their organization or system.

Using this handout as a prompt, you can lead any type of client through a problem solving process, starting with their dominant function and moving deeper, step-by-step, into the psyche.

Here are 4 in-depth activities for people to familiarize themselves with four type groupings: Sensing Feeling, Sensing Thinking, Intuiting Thinking, and Intuiting Feeling. Get ready for some serious stretching.

Much of Dr. Jung's experience was with neurotic patients. Within (or around!) every person--between ego and shadow--lies a choppy, chaotic sea, a neurotic boundary. We explore what the boundary looks like for each type.

Each of the 16 types has particular energetic challenges and needs. These are based on the type's perceiving function (Se, Si, Ne or Ni). Here is discussion and some specific tips for managing energy dynamics for the types.

This fun activity helps you really get into someone else's shoes. Find a writing partner (of a different type) and follow the guide and cheat-sheet to craft a vignette from your parter's point of view.

We take a look at 4 basic elements of the psyche: persona, ego, shadow, and the collective unconscious. We can think of them as a matrix: What is more or less conscious, and more or less private or social (known to others).

This is a doorway to more in-depth psychological work. When you know which side of the psyche dominates for a client, you also know what to focus on in terms of coaching and counseling.

The downloadables include a summary of the 4 coaching spaces, how to take a daily psychological pulse using breathwork, and 8 forms of dysfunction linked to the 8 Jungian cognitive processes.

Our coaches, counselors and consultants share some essential secrets: For example, when working with clients, focus on auxiliary section. With type, we can help a client overcome masks, get more flexible, shift perspectives, overcome insecurities, see more options, yet be more selective, foster acceptance, and take action. Of course, type can help build rapport and locate positive intentions. It's best to not assume based on type. Simply use type to more quickly and accurately reach the heart of a client's patterns, needs, and challenges.

Dr. Jung talked a lot about a "transcendent function". What is it? What's the evidence for it, and how does it work? Typically, when there is a lot of one-sidedness, there is a push from the unconscious, which shows up as dream images and neurotic behavior. At that point, the ego needs to learn how to work with it to grow.

Dr. Jung focused on alchemy as the method to solve one-sidedness. Since then, others such as Dr. John Beebe and Dr. Linda Berens have talked about the Spine of the Personality, Tandem Dynamics, and Polarities. Let's get an overview of what alchemy is and how it works.

For each cognitive process, you will find guides to synergy with the other processes. For each of the 16 types, you can pick out 2 processes -- the favorite for judging and the favorite for perceiving -- to draw in a full net of suggestions for the whole type pattern.

How can we actually "do" alchemy? For example, how does Te work with Ti, Fi, and even Fe? We draw from "The Magic Diamond" to see typical, inspiring examples of synergy.

The downloads include the synergies for Te plus a pack for all 8 Jungian processes in one convenient place.

You may wonder: Where to start? Much less where to go!?! We discuss some ways to find what material in the course can best carry you forward in your professional practice.

Practitioners share various ways to "onboard" people with type, such as telling stories and giving reading material.  Overall, type can be a good introduction to psychology. Lessons include holding type lightly, learning how to use type in real time, and not giving in to evangelizing. Rather than manipulate or assume, it is a tool to promote awareness, communicating, and love.