Personality Type

CONTACT

A New Year and a New Way of Thinking

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Ego Development, Essential Motivators, Human Agility, Interaction Styles, Personality Type, Perspective Taking, Temperament, Type Dynamics, Uncategorized
2018-01-04

Wishing you all the best for the new year… As 2018 starts I want to share with you a little history and afew thoughts that inform how we are transitioning into this new year. A Little History… In the 1990’s I presented type information at an ASTD (now ATD) meeting and became known as the ‘type lady.’ At that time, I bristled at the label because this work wasn’t just about type, but it has taken me a while to name what it is about. In the meantime, new trends have emerged using terms like vertical development (transformative with new capacities), horizontal development (refining what already is there), wholeness, self-organization, mindfulness, Holacracy, and more. Now I’m deep into those other trends and am ready to share some thoughts about type and how the ‘type-movement’ can shift in order to achieve its purpose of honoring individual differences. My life work has been around a purpose of enabling contexts where people thrive and are free to be all of who they are. It is one of honoring diversity, which, if not honored, triggers feelings of being ‘less than’ others. From a personal perspective, learning about my type released bound up energy...
Read more...
Why am I in this?

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Human Agility, Just Thoughts, Personality Type, Self-discovery
2015-10-10

Every now and then I ask myself why have I devoted so much time and effort to the study and applications of personality type information. It is almost an obsession. It is definitely a life work. So here is my story. I grew up in the 1950’s in a small farming community in Kansas, population 1100. 134 in my high school and 28 in my graduating class. 27 graduated. Like most young girls, I was going to be a nurse, then I took a one semester psychology class and knew I wanted to be a psychologist. I was fascinated with why people do what they do and my friends often confided in me. But really, mostly I felt like a misfit, as many teenagers do. I got good grades, was a president or an officer in every school organization except Future Farmers. I played in the band and was the head drummer for 6 years, starting in sixth grade. Yet I never seemed to find ‘my people.’ In 1962 I went off to college and it was harder than I thought it would be. I lost a scholarship, but gained a husband. We married after he graduated and we moved to...
Read more...
Self-leadership, Type, and Getting into The Communication Zone(R)

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Cognitive Styles, Communication, Essential Motivators, Human Agility, Interaction Styles, Mindfulness, Perspective Taking, Temperament, Type Dynamics
2015-06-11

Adapted from an article published in Volume 38.4 of the “Bulletin of Psychological Type,” March 4, 2015. Linda Berens and Stephanie Berens-Kiler Maybe this is familiar…At dinnertime, they had some leftovers and she said to her partner, “You don’t want the spaghetti.” She noticed that he seemed confused and somewhat irritated. He even said something about why was she so negative? Obviously she wasn’t in the communication zone like she usually saw herself. Read on to see how she used type to help her develop more self-leadership. It is said that leadership starts with self-leadership. It is also said that we all need to do more self-management as our organizational systems flatten and we receive less direction. Self-leadership requires self-awareness and the capacity to step outside ourselves. Self-leadership is most like what Robert Kegan called the self-authoring mind. Jennifer Garvey Berger describes it in this way: People with a self-authored mind are those who own their own work, make their own decisions, and mediate among different perspectives with relative ease. Communication is the medium for this development. Communication involves how we listen to others, how we interpret what they say and do and make meaning of it, and how we...
Read more...
Human Agility: What’s Type Got to Do With It?

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Ego Development, Human Agility, Integral, Personality instruments, Personality Type, Perspective Taking
2015-04-18

Why is personality type information useful or helpful? One reason is that it can help increase our agility. I hope you enjoy this video where I share why I think sharing type information using the Berens CORE Approach can really help us be more adaptable and flexible when we need to be and still stay true to who we are at our core. Many people learn about psychological type through the MBTI® instrument or through the work of David Keirsey. The models and the instruments used are not as important as the approach and how it is delivered. An Integral approach that honors whole type is what I am talking about when I talk about how type awareness can contribute to Human Agility. I hope you enjoy this video, which is a part of a series that will continue. To be sure you are alerted to new videos, you can sign up to our mailing list from this page or subscribe to my video channel.
Read more...
What Is a Type?

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Ego Development, Human Agility, Personality Type
2015-04-12

Sometimes people misunderstand what a ‘type’ is and tend to call a type as having a preference for a certain kind of process or a certain trait. While we can use this in everyday language, I put forth a different holistic and systems based view of type. In this short video I explain how we have a core self, a contextual self, and a developed self. This conceptualization helps us realize that there is something constant at our core, yet, we retain the capacity to adapt, grow, and evolve. [jwplayer mediaid=”6721″] I hope you take a look and let me know what you think. I’ve enabled comments on my YouTube channel: Linda Berens.
Read more...
Happy Spring—Renewal, Rejuvenation, and Type

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Ego Development, Essential Motivators, Human Agility, Interaction Styles, Personality Type, Perspective Taking, Temperament, Type Dynamics
2015-04-05

Today is Easter Sunday, a day celebrated by many as a reminder of rebirth and regeneration. Whether you celebrate Easter or not, it is spring and a time when there is new growth. It is a time that can remind us of the benefits of ‘letting go’ to ‘let come.’ Fall is a time of letting go as the leaves change color and drop off the trees and as plants slow down. Then in winter there is a kind of hibernation. And then in spring comes reemergence of leaves and blossoms. The beauty of the new leaves and spring flowers can only happen after the letting go. But this happens only when there are nutrients and water. Born in California, I lived in Kansas from age 2 until nearly 20, when I got married and we moved to California. I often am nostalgic for the markers of the seasons. Last weekend, I found lilacs in Trader Joe’s and bought 2 bunches. They are my favorite flower for the scent and the colors. And they remind me of joyful times in my grandmother’s garden and making May baskets. Oh, the joy of having them sitting in my line of sight as I...
Read more...
3 Domains of Self-Leadership

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Cognitive Styles, Ego Development, Essential Motivators, Interaction Styles, Leadership Development, Organizational Health Programs, Personality Type, Temperament, Type Dynamics, Uncategorized
2015-03-21

Notice that I didn’t say, “The 3 Domains…,” there are many domains of self-leadership, but in this blog, I want to share with you information about three domains of self-leadership that seem to have been forgotten in the current literature. Self-Leadership There are many articles, blogs, books, and websites devoted to discussing self-leadership. Their definitions and guidance range from checklists with ‘rules’ to follow that focus on setting goals to a focus on self-awareness and self-management. All of these have some value. Of course I favor the ones that focus on self-awareness and self-management. I also like the ones that cite the evidence that leadership development and organizational change programs need to start with self-leadership of not just the leaders, but also the individuals at all levels. And they also cite evidence that organizations are more successful by traditional measures when they do provide coaching and training that develops self-leadership. So how do we develop this self-leadership across an organization? How do we approach development of self-awareness when the focus is on actions to take rather than self-reflection? We can develop a great deal of the self-awareness needed for self-leadership through the Berens CORE™ Approach to introducing the multiple lenses...
Read more...
What Your MBTI® Results Probably Didn’t Tell You

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Cognitive Styles, Facilitation, Instruments, Interaction Styles, Personality instruments, Personality Type, Temperament, Type Dynamics, Uncategorized
2015-03-17

By that I mean, what the results alone didn’t tell you and what you may not have experienced in your interpretive session. For more information than what is in the video read the following updated blog post from 2010: Getting the Most Out of the Type Code The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® self-report instrument was developed by Isabel Myers to help individuals find their best-fit type. In order to develop the instrument, the J-P dichotomy was added. Now the four-letter type code that results from her work has become a standard for referring to the 16 types no matter how you arrive at determining the best-fit. Traditionally, type has been approached by explanation of the four dichotomies of Extraversion vs Introversion, Sensing vs iNtuiting, Thinking vs Feeling, and Judging vs Perceiving. By exploring preferences for one or the other pole of the dichotomies most clients get some very valuable information that they can use in their personal and professional lives. A growing number of type practitioners have found it useful and powerful to understand the type code in terms of other, related models that provide different information about important aspects of the 16 personality types. They use the four temperaments or Interaction Styles or...
Read more...
Whole Type and Beyond

by Linda Berens

| Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Cognitive Styles, Facilitation, Instruments, Interaction Styles, Personality instruments, Personality Type, Temperament, Type Dynamics, Uncategorized
2015-03-07

Among type practitioners, we often speak of ‘whole type.’ For many this means something about treating the 16 personality types derived from the theory of Carl Jung as ‘wholes’ rather than as adding up the parts. For example, INTP represents a holistic pattern with a theme that is more than the sum of the parts I + N + T + P. Often people give lip service to the statement that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, but don’t really have much available to use to describe the whole type patterns. Then they are likely to revert to describing the ‘parts’ of the type code such as Sensing versus iNtuiting. And they may even use language such as, “She is a Thinker.” The incongruity between the language and the statement about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts doesn’t occur to them. The view I find that honors how we are naturally as human beings is one that says there is a whole pattern and that pattern has a theme that we can describe holistically. For example, Dario Nardi and I developed some short themes that are not composed of the traits from the...
Read more...
Stress Triggers, Mindfulness, and the Shadow

by Linda Berens

| Cognitive Dynamics, Communication, Integral, Interpersonal Agility, Mindfulness, Personality Type, Temperament, Uncategorized, Wisdom
2014-10-18

When we are stressed we are not as agile as we need to be. And stress takes a toll on our health and quality of life. Personality related stress is often unconscious. Here is a story about an experience of mine where I unpack the relevance of all the models to one stressful situation. Each lens—Essential Motivators, Interaction Styles, and Cognitive Dynamics—helps me understand myself better and grow into having more positive interactions. I hope my story helps you see how you can use type lenses to increase your level of mindfulness and interpersonal agility. So here goes… I recently found myself in a situation where I didn’t show up in a way that I wanted. It was a somewhat difficult conversation and I made it more difficult by expressing my anger inappropriately. On reflection, I realized that I was more stressed in general than I had realized and that level of stress tipped me into a shadowy place, where something ‘had’ me rather than me being my authentic, best self. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t express anger. The issue was that in this instance expressing that anger was counterproductive. I lost some credibility when I did so and it...
Read more...