Psychometric instruments

Psychometrics instruments measure a persons abilities and personality in a structured way.  

There are three main types

• ability tests
• personality questionnaires
• interest inventories

At Management Futures we use a wide range of psychometrics to help leaders understand more about their own personal style, abilities and preferences.  This can help to make more sophisticated career choices, extend repertoire of leadership behaviours, enhance communication skills, and lead to better understanding of how work with difference and diversity.

These are the instruments we use most often:

The MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) is one of the oldest and most respected psychometric instruments in the world.  It is invaluable in assessing fundamental thinking preferences and is used widely in leadership and personal development, team coaching and in enhancing communication, influencing skills and enabling individuals to deal more effectively with conflict.

FIRO-B is also a highly credible and widely used tool, measuring how you typically behave with other people and what you expect from them with respect to control, inclusion, and affection.  It can be enormously useful in helping people to gain insight into their interpersonal needs and to be more aware of the choices they make.  Typical applications of FIRO-B include training and development courses and team building.

The Strong Interest Inventory can be of value for those who are at a career-crossroads and searching for an insight into which type of job would best suit them or those at the beginning of their career looking for clarity and inspiration.

Although not strictly speaking a personality inventory, undertaking the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory can help people understand any preferences they may have for assuming distinctive team roles.  Understanding the 9 roles and the balance of these roles within an existing team can enhance overall team success.  The simplicity and obvious common sense of the thinking behind it have considerable practical appeal.

Strength Deployment Inventory is a popular style inventory that helps individuals understand their underlying motivation value system and what happens to their behaviour when under stress and conflict.  It is used widely for team and individual development and can be most helpful in exploring the triggers to stress and sequences of behaviour in times of conflict.

The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) identifies five different styles of managing conflict. For most of us, only one or possibly two of these styles comes naturally to us, but we can learn others, and hence develop a more extensive repertoire of conflict-management skills.