Differentiated Coaching: Hypothesizing Personality Type

Mayers-Briggs Type Indicator determines a person’s personality type along four axes.

Introversion versus Extroversion: Introverts get energy from time alone while extroverts get energy from other people.

Sensing versus Intuition: Sensing people like data and details about decisions/ideas while intuitive people like the big picture (vision).

Thinking versus Feeling: Thinking people like to use data and standards for decisions while Feeling people prefer to use relationships and values to make decisions.

Judging versus Perceiving: Judging People like clear processes, constraints and timelines to minimize surprises while perceiving people like more flexible and open plans.

How would you define yourself? What type of colleagues do you work best with? What type of colleagues do you need to make more effort to work better with?

Ms. Kise explains that Introversion/Extroversion informs the coach on the best way to interact with the teacher, and Judging/Perceiving explains the teacher’s natural preference for planning and closure. This leaves four types which define how teachers prefer to receive information and make decisions. Table 7.1 of Type Preferences and Coaching Implications is a useful resource for coaches to consider how to best work with teachers who may have a preference that is different to that of the coach.

Image by Jake Beech via Wikicommons, License: CC BY-SA 3.0

This post is part of a larger series based on the book Coaching Approaches & Perspectives edited by Jim Knight. This post is based on sections of Chapter 7: Differentiated Coaching. Visit the Coaching category for other related posts.

Book Citation: Knight, J. (Ed.). (2008). Coaching: Approaches and perspectives. Corwin Press.