Warning: Don’t Take (or believe) a Personality Test

We were consulting with a physician who was transitioning into more administration. She described how she would be very expressive and articulate and initiate discussions that had anything to do with physician conflict. She was fascinated by these challenges; she was troubled. She said, “I know I am an introvert,” and people don’t believe I am. “I just get so animated and energized as I solve these problems.”

We smiled. This former doctor was being very extroverted in defense of her introversion.

Personality tests are designed to predict and react in a variety of scenarios. Most commonly, they provide a list of traits, and then, with our newly biased minds, we go ‘confirm” that we display those traits and even lead us to ‘confirm’ our perceptions that we display those traits to the exclusion of others.

Hogwash!

A few hours of answering questions relating to how you react in different scenarios or how others, with their biased perceptions, perceive you are responding in different scenarios are only that, one set or a few sets of perceptions. And by the biases they create by the questions, by the answering. The interpretations systematically ignore where you display and demonstrate the exact opposite traits or actions - often in the same situations depending on whether you perceived that that course of action would bring you more significant benefits than drawbacks. Everything is a strategy, and we choose our actions based on what we perceive is serving us most in our highest values.

The label may be revealing to you, especially if it is surprising to you. But it comes at a cost. You fail to recognize a price that you have access to the full range of traits and action sets, as does every human. It can be as disempowering as it can be empowering. Our physician colleague above was shying away from challenging scenarios where she shone because she felt it made her feel the need to show up as ‘someone she wasn’t.’ Made her show up as an extroverted, assertive, yet caring, individual.

One of us (KR) is a physician and has seen firsthand the benefits and drawbacks of labels. The science and art of diagnosis is a skill progressively honed over millennia and today is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Diagnosis, in part, is the assignment of a label, is considered a vital part of the therapeutic alliance. In this case, diagnosis has the potential to lead to courses of intervention (treatment) that might facilitate healing. Yet that same label can be used as an excuse to live a life not on purpose as part of an elaborate strategy. It becomes the reason why or why not, can or cannot. It has the potential to become the definition of the person, who they perceive they are or are not. But, on the other hand, it can empower some to expand and break new barriers and disempower others to shrink and give in.

The label itself does not have to be the problem. It is how it is used.

So, beware of putting yourself into a box. Even animals live more fulfilling lives outside of cages. If you are put into a box by others, know and demonstrate that you are more than that label because you are all that and more.