Episode 93: The Best Personality Tests for Small Business Bosses

Hey, what’s your sign? Personality test results sign, that is. In this episode, we’re delving into the best personality tests for small business bosses and how to make the most of them.

Here’s the scoop from Episode #93:

We don’t know about you, but we love a good personality test. There’s something that’s irresistible about learning about yourself. Plus, taking a quiz is fun!

We love personality tests so much so that we’re officially considered junkies. Believe it or not, we’ve learned so much about ourselves and others that we use on a daily basis, all from taking some personality tests.

So, let’s talk about our faves and the ones that are helpful as small business bosses.

Fascination Personality Test

Hands down, this is one of our favorites. So much so that we’re both certified advisors on how to use it and apply it.

Here’s what you need to know about this personality test:

• The Fascination Personality Test is based on how the world sees you — not how you see yourself. It reveals how you’re most fascinating.
• The science of fascination is focused on how you communicate in your best way and are more likely to stand out, so it’s perfect for marketing and branding.
• Each type has two advantages and then a dormant advantage. There are eight types total and the results are scary accurate!
• Maggie is a Provocateur and knowing this helped make sense of so much.
  • Provocateur means the dominant advantages are Innovation (ideas) + Mystique (listening) with dormant Alert (details).
  • Some of the key things that resonated with Maggie were wanting to listen way more than she talked and feeling like detailed work was quicksand.
  • Now Maggie uses those in a way that work FOR her and not against her.
• Brittany is the Royal Guard and knowing this has had major advantages and has really helped as a boss.
  • Royal Guard means the dominant advantages are Mystique (listening) and Prestige (excellence).
  • This made so much sense to Brittany, as far as wanting things a certain way, feeling that respect is so important, and having recognition by the people that she thinks matter. The downside of perfectionism (excellence) is that it can make her seem a little standoffish because she wants things to be perfect before she talks about them.
  • The world sees Brittany at her BEST when she’s tuned into the language of listening and excellence. Even if we’re good at other things.

Myers Briggs

• This is probably one of the most popular tests around and most people have taken it.  It’s been around for 50+ years and is proven. Plus, it’s the most widely used personality test in the world.
• There’s a total of 16 types and it looks at:
  • Your favorite world: Extroverted (E) or Introverted (I)
  • Information: Sensing (S) – take in the basics, or Intuition (N) – add meaning to the basics
  • Decisions: Thinking (T) – logic/consistency, or Feeling (F) – looking at the people and situation
  • Structure: Judging (J) – get things decided, or Perceiving (P) – stay open to new info
• What we like about the MBTI for small business bosses is:
  • It taps into your strengths, weaknesses, and most of all, how you perceive and process information.
  • The insight into how you operate and how your decisions, information and structure impact how your business runs can be an eye opener and help you make sense of why you do what you do.
  • It let’s you see the real differences in styles and manage to them, which can help you balance out your team as you grow. (Our team is heavily, heavily introverted. Big time.)
  • Maggie and Brittany are both the same Myers Briggs type: INTJ. This is one of the most rare, and less than 1% of women are this type. (Yes, we’re super special!)
    • Being the same type is helpful as we really get each other, but then it can be bad as we look at things a little too similarly, and it’s not the way that the majority of the world thinks.
    • We often end up “late to the game” for things that we don’t ‘get’ (like video).
    • For us, everything is open to questioning…which means we see all angles, and it can lead to analysis paralysis. We’re in our heads way too much.

The Four Tendencies

• Created by the Happiness Project author, Gretchen Rubin, the Four Tendencies outlines how you respond to expectations — either inner ones or outer ones.
• Your response to expectations is more important than it sounds as you can identify your edge and your stumbling blocks.
  • Using this framework helps us to make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress, and engage more effectively with other people.

• What are the four tendencies?
  • Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations.
  • Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense. Essentially, they make all expectations into inner expectations.
  • Obligers meet outer expectations but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves.
  • Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike.
• So…what were our results?
  • Maggie: This is going to shock everyone (yes, that’s sarcasm), but Maggie’s a rebel. This means she resists control, and tends to flout rules. (Unless they are rules of the road.) She can be frustrating as hell. It also means she has to set things up so they work for her, or she’s gonna be testy.
  • Brittany: Brit’s a Questioner. She ask lots of questions about what is expected in general. She also has no problem upholding expectations if she believes in them. They have to make sense to her, otherwise, she will not do them until they do make sense to her. Brit’s not someone who will do something for the sake of doing it ‘just because’. Her biggest example of this is probably leaving her ‘good’ job years ago and living a slightly unconventional life (at least according to her parents/family!).

Chronotype: The Power of When

• This last one is a fun one — especially if you’ve ever wondered why you’re such a morning person or night owl.
• The Chronotype is all about your master biological clock and the time/pace that clock goes at. Your body functions better at certain times of the day than at others, so if you’re a morning person, that’s not your fault.
• We love this one for small business bosses as you can use it to set your days up for success and impose limits when things don’t work for you. After all, you should work with your clock, not against it.
• There are four Chronotypes (Dolphin, Lion, Bear, and Wolf), and most people fit into the “Bear” category.
• Brittany is totally a dolphin. Not a great sleeper, anxious, type A and a perfectionist. She tends to have spurts of productivity all throughout the day. Which is interesting because while she generally considers herself a morning person, she does notice that it’s not uncommon for her to go in cycles of productivity where she’s more productive at night. After reading through the descriptions, she feels part dolphin, part lion.
• Maggie is typical. She’s a bear, but she’s not convinced. She thinks she likely goes back and forth between bear and wolf as she’s a night owl at times and tends to do her best creative work after 9 p.m. She’s going to think about how to be more bear as her night owl-ness usually catches up with her.

and prestige, but she suffers from perfectionism…um yes, yes she does.

Links for this show:

• Find out how the world sees you by taking the Fascination Personality Test.
• See which one of the 16 Myers Briggs personality types you are.
• Learn how you respond to expectations by taking The Four Tendencies quiz.
• Figure out how to optimize your master biological clock with the Chronotype: The Power of When quiz.