
There are so many analytical tools for mapping personality traits and leadership modes.
Myers-Briggs (MBTI), the Big Five, the Enneagram of Personality, astrology too: people use these and many other conceptual and analogical mapping systems to order and interpret patterns that they perceive as they look at their lives and their interactions with others.
A separative way to use these tools is to insist that you are your test results: you are an ISTP; you are open to experience or not; you are a One; you are a Virgo; you are that and not much more. Your test results can explain why you lead the way you do, why you can’t stand this context or that, why you thrive in one role over another, why you often notice certain things while others are opaque to you.
A more integrative way is to recognize your potential access to other categories of experience than those you usually live in. Even if a few modes seem to come much more easily than others, and even if some produce less comfortable or effective outcomes, integrating them all means leaving none of them so far away from psychological “home” that you can only respond with fear when you see them expressing in other people.
Treat each of your categories as a utility, not a uniform. Treat them as an instrument that grounds you where you stand and allows you to perceive more about yourself and the world about you, not as a restricting chain that gives you a free pass not to move or grow.
You are that. And you can be more.
Don’t box yourself in.
