MBTI Profile Report
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality
inventory is a psychometric questionnaire that is considered to be the simplest
and most reliable method of determining a person’s personality type (Myers
& Myers, 1995). It was originally created by Swiss psychologist Carl
Gustav Jung, and later greatly developed by the Mother and Daughter
collaboration of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs-Myers. It identifies sixteen distinctly different
personality types into which we all fit.
Our personality type affects all aspect of our lives, from the way in
which we play as children to the subjects or activities in school that interest
or bore us to the occupations we find satisfying as adults (Tieger,
Barron-Tieger, 2001). This can be
extremely useful to know as an employer because it not only reflects the type
of information we notice and remember, but the way we make decisions and how
much and what kind of structure we prefer.
People can determine their personality type through
a series of questions that are answered through the individuals’ preferences
regarding perception and judgement, resulting in a recognizable set of traits
and potentialities. There are four components (Extrovert/Introvert,
Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving) in which each
person has one preference, resulting in sixteen possible combinations. On completion of all four sections the individual
is left with a four letter code, describing their dominant response from each
component. As a result of this test, the four letter code that describes
my own personality is ISTJ (Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, Judging).
This report will identify each of my own Type
preferences, giving examples of events in which I feel I have displayed these
characteristics, and how I feel these preferences relate to the role of a Sport
Scientist.
Introvert
(I)
The introverts’ main interests are in the inner
world of concepts and ideas, while the extrovert is commonly refered to as being more sociable and outgoing (Funder, 2010). This is reflective of me in that I
believe I work effectively with ideas. Evidence of this can be seen in my
performance analysis work, where I have learned the basic skills required to
operate Sportscode software and shown creativity in the statistics that I
collect and how these are presented. I have continually adapted and
developed ideas in an attempt to improve myself and the quality of work that I
then produce to coaching staff within the football club where I am
participating in an internship. This demonstrates a growth mindset in
that I am constantly striving to improve myself, and my skill set in this
area. The work I have produced has been implicitly recognized at the club
by awarding me with further responsibility. This resulted in me offering
ideas in relation to conditioning players, and consequently being asked to come
into the club on an extra day to work with the players. Having
conversations with coaching staff, and being able to convey my knowledge and
ideas in a particular subject was the reason behind this. Implicit recognition
suits my introversion as I feel that I am not effected by the absence of
encouragement. In this regard, if I believe in what I am doing and have a
real interest in it, I can work very hard without the need of
reassurance. As an introvert I am also very much interested in the
insight that theory may provide and the importance of having a deep knowledge
of the area I wish to work in. This is another essential skill for a
Sport Scientist in that there is a responsibility to apply knowledge that is
peer reviewed and has a strong evidence base.
It is also important to recognize that there are
many aspects of this job role that require extroversion dominance. For example, when working with groups of players/athletes
it may be necessary to carry out educational presentations to inform on key
subjects such as nutrition, recovery and conditioning. During my university career, I have myself
been in the position where I have had to present to a group; and at first
considered this quite a difficult task due to my introversion. The strategy that I used to overcome my
anxieties was to rehearse a well-structured script and research the topic
thoroughly so that key knowledge was implicitly learned. During the presentation the nerves promptly
subsided and on completion of the presentation I was left with an enormous
feeling of achievement and accomplishment.
Sensing
(S)
Humans are equipped with two distinct but varying
ways of perceiving. One way is through the familiar process of sensing,
which is where we become aware of things through the five senses. The
other is the process of intuition, which is indirect perception by way of the
unconscious (Myers & Myers, 1995). This can be illustrated by the
masculine ‘hunch’, or ‘woman’s intuition’. Having a more sensing
perception, I like to have access the facts and have time to understand
them. Touch, sight and hearing are vital senses for the Sport Scientist
in many situations such as testing athletes. While undertaking a sport
science internship at a professional football club one of my roles included
measuring player body fat percentage using skin fold calipers. At first
this was a daunting prospect for me, although after many test days completed,
and the high number of players tested on each test day, my confidence soon grew
with senior members of staff satisfied with my results. From this
experience I believe that players confidence in me also grew, as I would often
be asked for advice while testing the players, which seemed to be intently
received. On reflection of this I feel as though the players viewed me as
a valuable member of staff. They would always treat the test days with
professionalism and be keen to find out their results. For me as an
intern, this was not only a valuable experience to improve my hard skills, but
also an opportunity to build a rapport with players on a more personal
level.
This personality preference would also be pertinent
in the gathering of other test data. During the pre-season testing
battery I was in supervision of two testing stations. One station was
vertical jump to measure power and the other was a functional movement screen.
I was able to apply knowledge learned at university into a professional
sporting environment. It was very important to visually ensure that the
correct test protocol was followed which would provide reliable test
data. Using my vision to scrutinize the functional movement of each
player through-out the movement screen was essential in order to highlight any
mobility or stability issues. My knowledge and professionalism during
these tasks was rewarded with the club inviting me on their pre-season training
camp to Portugal.
Thinking
(T)
Thinking and feeling refer to the individuals’ judgement. By thinking the individual uses logic to
establish an impersonal finding, whereas feeling is a more subjective
conclusion made on a more personal level.
As a thinker, I am more inclined to
organize facts and ideas into a logical sequence and present them in a
structured way. I feel as though this is
the reason for my interest in collecting data, which is another hard skill
essential for the Sport Scientist.
During one of my internships, I have introduced wellness and training
load monitoring. This was accomplished
by creating a wellness questionnaire which players completed every morning
before training, and collecting session intensities at the end of training
sessions. All data collected was
organized in Microsoft Excel, and using techniques that I have developed from
my own self education, presented in easy to interpret manner. Test data collected from the pre-season
testing battery was also presented in this manner, and supplied to senior
coaching staff. Players were also given
access to the data, which added to the competitive environment within the club,
with players motivated not to be last. I
feel that giving players access to view test results is very important in terms
of allowing them to establish were they rank within the team, and may possibly
motivate them to work harder.
When the
wellness and training load data collection was started, the players were very
receptive to it, but as the weeks progressed, there seemed to be a lack of
engagement. I assumed that this was as a
result of lack of information given to the players in regards to the rationale
behind this, which to some degree was my responsibility in that I may not have
been clear in communicating why I was implementing this. This could be as a result of my
introversion. As a result of my sensing
preference I felt confident to address this directly by creating an informative
poster, with important information in relation to why I was doing what I was
doing.
Judging/ (J)
Judging
types believe that life should be willed and decided, while the perceptive
types regard life as something to be experienced and understood (Myers &
Myers, 1995). As having a more judging
preference, I am more likely to decide the best way of carrying out a task, and
then consistently doing it that way; when this is combined with my thinking
preference, this encourages me to look for the most logical method. This can be related to the live match
analysis that I perform during one of my internships. Firstly, with the help of the coaching staff,
I had to identify key performance indictors’ that were deemed relevant to
successful performance. This was established
through conversations with coaching staff, and also my own research into match
analysis which I pursued through various books and research papers. This process gave me a feeling of increasing
confidence in this area, and helped me identify what was important and what was
not. I learned from my investigations
that it was not as simple as just identifying certain instances every match,
and that it was an ever evolving process resulting in me adjusting code windows
and statistical reports on a weekly basis.
Once the
analysis was complete, I would always endeavor to have all clips and statistics
available to players and coaches within a 24-hour period. This required me to be efficient and
methodical in my approach in order to be as time efficient as possible. This experience has also allowed me to show
that I can work to deadlines and that I can still maintain a high quality of
work.
Conclusion
Following
the MBTI personality inventory, my personality preferences resulted in ISTJ,
which on reflection I think I agree with.
This combination of preferences indicates that I have a systematic and
thorough approach to tasks, with a practical respect for the facts and the
ability to focus and develop ideas. The
experience I have gained through university life and work placements have
further developed these traits, and on reflection of this task I have learned
that these innate traits can be embraced and further developed. Work placements and experience in the
professional sporting environment have been as a result me finding and enabling
these opportunities independently. This
has built my confidence and also facilitated my opportunity to further network
and promote myself.
I intend
to reflect more on the tasks that I experience by documenting these events and
developing my ability to express my feelings in regards to how these
experiences affect me. It is important
for me to develop strategies to enable me to function in environments that do
not obviously suit my personality type.
For me this will involve developing my public speaking, which I believe
will improve with experience. I have
developed my own personal website in order to promote myself and to create a respectful
online presence. I believe that this
would be an ideal platform to document my experiences and to track my
development.
References
1.Funder,
D.C.C. (2010) The personality puzzle. 4th
edn. New York: Norton, W. W. & Company
2.Myers,
I.B. and Myers, P.B. (1995) Gifts
differing: Understanding personality type. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting
Psychologists Press
3.Tieger,
P.D., Barron-Tieger, B. (2001) Nuture by
nature: Understanding your childs personality type – and become a better
parent. Boston, MA, United States: Little, Brown and Company
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