Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™ Basics for Leaders: Cultivating High Performance and Leading Change

Instructor: Cynthia J. Bean, Ph.D.

Four-Hour Course: A grade of PASS or FAIL will be determined. The requirement for passing this course is attendance/participation for the entire four hour duration of the session.

Course Description:

                        This course, MBTI Basics for Leaders, is designed to introduce the basic tenets of MBTI and its use by leaders in a) facilitating high performance among followers and b) successfully leading organizational change.

 

Course Agenda:

8:30             Introduction and Welcome

8: 50             Opening activity  - Leading Change: What does it take?

Lecturette and discussion activity

-          Define the difference between leadership and management

-          Define High Performance

-          Explicate the link between leadership and change

9:20 Lecture/Discussion of MBTI and what it tells us (part one)

10:00 Break

10:15 Lecture/Discussion of MBTIand what it tells us (part two)

(This discussion provides in-depth information about the aspects of personality measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.  Based upon Jungian psychology, this instrument is widely used to identify patterns and preferences of behavior in individuals. In application in organizations, it helps to clarify differences and offers insights into working and communicating with a variety of people.)

11:00 Report individual results from MBTI to individual participants (Prior to taking this course, individuals will have completed (voluntarily) the MBTI instrument.  The results identifying the personality type indicated by their completion of the instrument will be shared with each person, results are confidential information shared only individually with each person in writing. The instructor will allow time for one-on-one discussion and questions after class.)

11:15 Leadership and MBTI discussion/activity

            This discussion will center around the differences among MBTI types regarding specific aspects of leadership.  The activity will include identifying a change communication process based upon the concepts in Kotters and Cohen’s book, The Heart of Change.  The communication developed by each participant will then be analyzed for its likely influence/effect in reaching other personality types, and a discussion of leading change for heterogenous groups will conclude this segment.

12:00 Wrap up activity: Next steps (or, What do I do when I get back to my desk?)

Each individual will develop his/her own next steps in terms of the leaderful-behaviors they can enact and the leadership communication they can offer to reach their followers.

12:30 End

Course Objective(s):

            At the end of this course, the student should be able to:

-          Understand the difference between leadership and management

-          Understand the link between leadership and change

-          Understand definition of a  ‘high performance’ organization

-          Understand important topics central to organizational development and change in practice, especially leader communication designed to reach all followers

-          Understand what the MBTI instrument measures/does not measure, and appropriate/inappropriate applications of results of MBTI instrument in an organizational setting for individual, leader and team development.

-          Be able to use in practice the ideas of leadership and leadership communication linked to motivating and communicating with all MBTI personality types

Suggested Pre-requisites:  This course is most effective if all participants complete the MBTI instrument prior to the session.

Required Text(s) will be provided:

1) Looking at Type™: The Fundamentals by Charles Martin, Ph.D. (published by Center for Applications of Psychological Type and available only through qualified facilitators and trainers).

2) Leadership and Type, pamphlet published by Center for Applications of Psychological Type.

Suggested additional reading:

1) The Heart of Change: Real Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations by Kotter and Cohen, Harvard Business School Press