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Pastors, People, and Personality Tests
By New Churches Team
Is personality typing a useful tool for leaders? In short, yes! Personality typing can be an effective tool for leaders to help them know how to interact with a person. While personality assessments don’t fully reveal who a person is, they can help a leader understand what someone will respond positively or negatively to, how they will handle conflict, how they will interact with others on a team, and how they may respond to change. There are many benefits to knowing someone’s personality type.
However, what you also have to consider is that you must get to know the actual person. While an assessment may point out a person’s weaknesses, their life experiences and God’s redeeming grace may have helped shape and change them.
What is the Best Personality Assessment to Use?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
The StrengthsFinder Assessment.
Emotional Intelligence Quickbooks.
The Enneagram.
While assessments are helpful, please keep in mind that the “perfect” assessment does not exist. There is no assessment that will help a person completely understand who they are or the way God has uniquely created them.
How Can I use Personality Assessments with My Staff?
If you will be using personality assessments with your staff, it will be beneficial to use more than one assessment to help you get a good overview of the person. A part of our job as leaders is to help a person understand themselves better as leaders within the church context and beyond.
While assessments are useful tools, remember that an assessment is just an assessment. Little to no change will occur if the results are just left on a computer or in a folder. It is important to have a plan of integration for each person, team-building times that encourage people to use their strengths, and also the opportunity to re-visit the assessment results from time to time.
Adapted from the New Churches Q&A Podcast Episode 382: Should You Use the Enneagram Assessment In Your Church? Click here to subscribe and listen to more church planting, multisite, and multiplication tips.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New Churches Team
NewChurches.com wants to help you build a strong foundation by connecting you with top experts in the field of church planting and multisite ministry, and by regularly providing you with the resources, information, and community you need to thrive as you multiply the mission of Matthew 28.
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