1Communication
4Interpersonal Relations
8Collaboration & Teamwork
Exploring Your Personality Type
Take the 16Personalities assessment and make sense of your results.
Understanding how you communicate, take in information, and work with others begins with understanding yourself.
Everyone interacts, learns, and collaborates differently, and that's a strength, not a flaw. Knowing your tendencies can help you communicate more clearly, avoid misunderstandings, work better with people who think differently than you, and understand why certain group situations feel easy and others feel hard.
In this lesson you'll take the free 16Personalities assessment and learn what your results mean. The point is self-awareness, the foundation of strong collaboration, not a label.
Take the assessment
Go to 16personalities.com (opens in a new tab)
Start the free test. It takes about 10 minutes. The free results are all you need, so skip any paid upgrades.
Answer honestly
There are no right or wrong answers. Go with your first instinct, and answer for how you usually are, not how you think you should be.
Get your type
Your result is a four-letter type plus a fifth letter after a dash, like ENFP-T or ISTJ-A, along with a short description and a type name.
16Personalities uses the four-letter codes made famous by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, but it isn't the Myers-Briggs. It's its own model, built on the "Big Five" personality traits that psychology researchers use most.
Understand your letters
Each letter comes from a pair. Together they give clues about how you operate in groups, communicate, make decisions, and handle stress. Most people land somewhere between the two ends of each pair, so read your percentages too, not just the letter.
Energy How you recharge
- I · Introverted
- Energized by quiet time. Tends to think things through first.
- E · Extraverted
- Energized by people. Tends to talk things out.
Mind How you take in information
- S · Observant
- Practical and down-to-earth. Likes concrete details and clear steps.
- N · Intuitive
- Imaginative and curious. Likes patterns, big ideas, and possibilities.
Nature How you make decisions
- T · Thinking
- Leads with logic and fairness.
- F · Feeling
- Leads with values, harmony, and how people are affected.
Tactics How you approach plans
- J · Judging
- Likes plans, organization, and predictability.
- P · Prospecting
- Likes flexibility, improvising, and keeping options open.
Identity How you handle pressure
- -A · Assertive
- Tends to feel steady and self-assured under stress.
- -T · Turbulent
- Tends to feel stress more and push hard to improve.
None of these is good or bad. They're different ways of being effective. A Turbulent result doesn't mean you're fragile, and an Assertive one doesn't mean you never worry.
How your type can show up in groups
Your tendencies might shape:
- How you communicate. Extraverts often talk it out; introverts often think first, then speak.
- How you take on tasks. Observant types want the details; Intuitive types want the big picture first.
- How you make decisions. Thinking types aim for logic; Feeling types weigh how people will be affected.
- How you handle deadlines. Judging types want a plan early; Prospecting types need room to adjust.
- How conflict feels. Feeling types may avoid it; Thinking types may take it head-on.
Your brain's wiring shapes collaboration too, whether or not you have a name for it. The next lesson looks at that, along with the strengths and struggles that come with each tendency.
Lesson 7.3: Strengths. Your HIGH5 results and your type are two different lenses on the same person.
A map, not a rulebook
Your personality type is not your identity, and it doesn't decide what you can or can't do. Personality tests describe tendencies, and your results can shift depending on your mood, your season of life, or how you read a question. Think of your type as a map of how you tend to operate, not a box you're stuck in.
If part of your result doesn't sound like you, trust yourself. Noticing what doesn't fit is just as useful as noticing what does.
Your first impressions
- Which parts of your type feel accurate?
- What surprised you, or what do you disagree with?
- What described you well in group situations?
- What made you think, "Hmm, that explains a lot"?
Record your type and first impressions in Step 2 of the Collaboration Snapshot.
Once you know your type, look it up on Frank James's YouTube channel (opens in a new tab). His short videos about each type are funny, and often uncomfortably accurate. Take them as entertainment, not science.