Using Your Strengths for Effective Professional Communication

On January 12, 2016, Jennifer Sargent, Visiting Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, facilitated a Management and Leadership Development Program session on the importance of understanding personality types and how to effectively communicate with other personality types.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test, which each participant took before the session, indicates individual thought preferences, and Professor Sargent explained to students how to use that information to their communication advantage.

She also demystified the notion that there is some ideal leader personality type. There are traits that have nothing to do with your personality preferences, such as active listening, balancing ideas, and recognizing the importance of every idea in a group, which enables strong leadership and management.

She went on to explain what each personality preference meant, and the strengths and weaknesses of each one. The best leaders take their ideas and transition them to a way that their team can most effectively hear them, which can only be done by understanding how others work. “Strong leadership and management requires not only being open to others’ ideas, but other ways of thinking,” said Sargent.

MLDP participant Victor Crentsil ’17 found the session very enlightening, “I got a sense of my personality, and how I can better relate with other people, and in which aspects I can grow to become a stronger person.”

Submitted by Mary Sieredzinski ’17, Student Program Assistant for the Management and Leadership Development Program