Pros and Cons of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

I use MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) extensively in my work as a coach.  I have also found it to be an immensely powerful tool personally.  When I started to really understand MBTI it was literally a life changing moment for me – I have written elsewhere about how discovering my true personality type enabled me to manage my energy so much more effectively and therefore rebuild my life.

And yet, I am well aware that MBTI is far from being a perfect tool. I suspect that the more you know about any system, the better able you are to see its limitations, and MBTI definitely has its limitations. But the even more worrying issue is just how frequently this tool is misused.  Since I don’t like to be someone who dances around the issues, today’s blog is my attempt to confront this topic head on.

In this blog post I consider the three primary ways in which Myers-Briggs can be used (understanding of self, understanding of others, and in the workplace) and how each of these uses can be either positive or negative depending on the context.

Understanding of self

My personal belief is that one of the most powerful ways MBTI can be used is as a tool for personal development and increasing one’s self awareness.

Essentially, MBTI focuses on how people like to learn new information and how they like to make decisions, but there is a surprising level of insight that can come from the combination of these two factors.  Knowing the patterns of how personality types tend to show up to the world, can really help us to see our talents that we may have previously under-valued or our blind-spots that we may not previously have acknowledged.

This is all the more true because a good type description should be neutral, in the sense of not portraying any one type as being better than another.  In MBTI none of the personality traits are considered negative and all types are considered to be a valued part of the human ecosystem.  This can make it a powerful tool for self-acceptance.

However, the very fact that the experience of receiving your first accurate type description can be so powerful, is part of what can lead to the unhealthy use of MBTI for self-understanding.  Because the experience is so powerful there can be a temptation to overvalue the system and give it more credit that it really deserves.

In more extreme examples this can lead to an over-reliance on stereotypical understandings of type.  People may get over-attached to the apparent weaknesses of their type and use this as an excuse to not even attempt improvement in this area.

In all honesty, I have seen this as a particular problem for the introvert community in general.  I often find myself hesitant to admit to being an INFJ as there is such a strange hype about the type online, and not all of it is helpful or even accurate.

Understanding of others

Put simply, not everyone thinks the same and MBTI can really help us to understand the variety of different ways different people can approach the same situation.  MBTI packs quite a lot of complexity into a deceptively simple model and this makes it relatively easy for people with no prior training to get inside someone else’s perspective if the model is explained well to them.  This can work wonders for misunderstandings in relationships, for example.

However, just as it is possible to develop an unhealthy relationship with MBTI when it comes to self-understanding, so it is also possible to misuse MBTI when it comes to using it to understand other people.

You can see this most clearly when it seems that someone’s use of MBTI is actually getting in the way of them actually being able to see the unique person standing in front of them.  I’m thinking, for example, of the type of people who would refuse to date certain personality types!   Sometimes, this stems from a simplistic understanding of MBTI that focuses on stereotypical behaviours rather than brain wiring.  But even when it is based on a fuller understanding of type, it can still be really harmful.  In my opinion, this is definitely a misuse of MBTI.

In the workplace

This is possibly the most controversial part of this email, so I’ve saved it for last!  Often many people first encounter MBTI in a workplace setting.  Given that part of the context in which MBTI was developed was to help match women with suitable jobs during the Second World War, you’d think that MBTI would definitely be well-suited for use in the workplace today.  But it’s not quite that simple…

I do believe that there are some ways in which MBTI can be very helpful in the workplace setting.  For example, I think that it can be a useful way for employers to know how best to support their employees or for team members to learn how to work together more effectively.  But even in these cases, you will only get value from the exercise if it is conducted by an experienced professional. When employers rely only on giving the test to the employees then you’re going to get a high incidence of mistyping.

For example, I spent years mistakenly believing that I was an INTP based on a test that I did.  Anyone who knows anything about MBTI will be able to tell that I am definitely not an INTP, but those were the results that the test churned out!  One of the biggest criticisms of MBTI isn’t about the system itself, but is about the accuracy of the testing that is available – and I am inclined to agree with this criticism, that’s why I only offer profiling conversations.

If an individual has a mistaken idea of their type and only a passing interest in MBTI then a mistype is no big deal.  But if an employer is in any way basing the support they offer to an employee based on a mistyping, then it’s easy to see where problems will quickly arise.

So, although I do believe that MBTI can be useful in a workplace setting; I’m going to go out on a limb and say that much of the way it is currently used in the workplace is inappropriate and some of it may even be harmful.  Mostly this is because most of the people who are using MBTI simply don’t understand the system thoroughly enough to use it in a context in which such delicacy is required.

How I like to think of MBTI

All in all, I find MBTI to be a very useful tool.  After all, there is definitely a reason why I use it so much in my business!  There may be plenty of other personality profiling tools out there, and there are tasks where other tools will definitely be more appropriate than MBTI.  But for what I do, MBTI is invaluable.  It’s all about finding the right tool for the right job.

Some people criticise personality profiling tools as being ways to put people in boxes.  Personally, I prefer to think of them as maps.  Depending on where you want to go and what transport you’re using, different parts of the map will be more interesting to you.  MBTI is a map with enough different types of typographical information that it can be useful to lots of different people, but it still can’t do everything!  And given that most of the unhealthy uses of MBTI that I described above involve an over-valuing of MBTI, then the most important thing is to remember that even the best map will not be the same thing as the terrain that it is trying to map!  In the same way, you are so much more than just your personality type.