It’s Always Personal

Your primary type is a SOLVER.

Solvers (13%) are the most rare in our typology, and relatively more of them are CEO’s and business owners than any of the four groups. Solvers have an inner strength that comes from their sense of personal mastery. Compared with our three other categories there are twice as many Solvers in top management – owners, CEOs and other senior executives. They identify themselves as introspective and as people who do their best work under stress and are comfortable speaking up. Solvers consider themselves creative, and are significantly more satisfied with their lives than any other group. They’re also, on average, between five and nine years older than members of the other groups – indicating that we may grow into better emotional management as we age. Rather than merely reacting to external events where they feel little measure of control, these people are problem-solvers – confident in their abilities to get the job done. And they are comfortable expressing emotion as well as observing emotion in others. Solvers are great at thinking under pressure, understanding that work situations and conflicts are inherently complex, never binary. But once Solvers arrive at a decision, they rarely have second thoughts and can appear aloof and removed from other’s concerns or issues.

Your secondary type is a BELIEVER.

Believers (27%) think of themselves as relatively happy people who find solace by trusting in the stabilizing, civilizing power of larger principles and the greater good– their faiths, their organizations, their ideals, their country – and feel unhappy when those values are compromised. Being appreciated for their work, staying true to their mission and their principles are central. Believers possess high degrees of fortitude deriving their most important sense of inner strength from external sources, such as religious belief or commitment to causes. Most Believers don’t consider themselves natural leaders, but they are by and large satisfied with their lives. This group skews slightly female and they have a solid sense of self. They’re less comfortable as a group than Solvers or Spouters with their own expressions of emotion – although they are comfortable with others expressing emotion in the workplace. Unlike Spouters, these people listen more than they speak and prefer to tell the truth, but don’t tend to go out on a limb to make a point. They fall back on the foundations of their social networks to find personal resiliency. Believers can be helpful in emotionally charged situations: during stressful times at work they can help lift others out of the immediacy of a single moment and help the organization focus on the larger mission.