Self perception vs others Perseption

For my class I was asked to take the Myers Briggs personality Type Indicator along with the Big five personality indicator. This was somewhere around the 6^th or 7^th time I have taken these tests for a class over my four years in college. This was common for Business Management majors since the teachers strive for us to know our selves and they also want to know our results to understand us better. The Myers Briggs test has been sporadic over my four years and I don’t believe that’s an error. I have significantly matured and changed over these last four years and the result of an INTJ seems fitting for where I am in my life. This was very different from where I was freshman year when I took this caring much more about different things and trying to be as extroverted as possible.

The Big five test has been more consistent in my experiences taking it, attaining “OCEAN” which says things like “prefer traditional and familiar experiences, very well-organized, can be relied upon, enjoy spending quiet time alone, easy to express irritation with others, tend to become anxious or nervous.” In my own opinion, this is not too far off from how I perceive myself. However, in another class the assignment started off with myself taking it, then having a close friend and a family member take it, answering those same questions about you. The results were drastically different between the mine and theirs. I viewed myself as more of an introvert who is organized and keeps to myself. Their view was someone who was outgoing, showed little fear, and enjoyed being spontaneous. This truly was eye opening how the people close to me view me could be so far off with how I viewed myself. This was a much more retrospective way to go about taking these tests, showing me that my self perception varied from others perception of me. Rather than getting results and locking that into my ideology of who I was, I got to see how someone else views me and it was much more beneficial.

Relating this to a future in health industry (preferable in management), it has showed that it’s important to know how you view yourself but if you want to be a good leader it’s more important to know how others view you. If you ignore how the people in your life view you there will be a disconnect with your leadership and management style and it will not be as effective as it should be. Seeing how you view yourself only gives insight to yourself and might not be accurate. So, next time you take these tests have someone else take it for you as well and see how they view you, for that information is more helpful in knowing who you really are and not just who you think you are.