Personality Assessment

How to Assess the Ego

Dr. Showalter Johnson

Personality Assessment

© 2020 Showalter Johnson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

11301 Heron Bay Blvd , PO Box 287
Website: www.wellerx.org
Email: info@wellerx.org

1.
Do Assessments Actually Help You Hire Better?

The proof is in the results.

When it comes to incompatible hires, 74 percent of employers admit they’ve picked the wrong person for a position. When a person within an organization is placed in the wrong position it is because their personality is not strategically positioned within the organization. This will eventually cause harm in the form of financial loss as well as numerous interpersonal conflicts.

Companies that use assessments are 24 percent more likely to have employees who meet or exceed their goals.

The power behind personality assessment lies in their ability to predict (in a multitude of ways) how teams—leaders and individuals—can exceed their goals.

One study showed that 82 percent of U.S. companies use pre-hire assessments but not pre-hire personality assessments.

Pre-hire personality assessments ensure that you pick the right person for the job while also helping you choose the right mix of personalities that will bring balance to the team.

A leader has the ability to strike the right power-balance within a group.
#Drshowalterjohnson

2.
What is a Personality Assessment?

Personality assessments go far beyond surface level data to probe the inner workings of a candidate’s temperament and attitude.

Unlike opinions or learned behaviors, a personality is for more static and therefore far more useful to help predict long-term performance.

Personality assessment trumps behavior or opinion.
#Drshowalterjohnson

A personality assessment predicts long term performance. At Wellerx we have developed a personality assessment that goes beyond pop-psychology. This method of assessment will teach you how to pair different personalities that complement each other, while building a cooperative society.

Fit

In order to find your natural role within a company or group you must be able to adapt or “fit in.” Assessments help to align positions or roles with people who have the skill or traits to excel in those positions or roles.

Assessments are designed to uncover complementary skills, creating a matrix for teamwork. Pairing the right personalities together is tremendously important for growth within the workplace.

Our personality assessment specializes in pairing personalities that strike the right power balance. Leaders within a group find it easier to work together after using our assessment for “strategic positioning” of team members because it helps create a healthy fit for everyone in the group.

Performance

Evaluating performance involves taking a collection of personality traits into account. Our assessment can predict a candidate’s complex problems and critical thinking skills, which then helps that candidate work within a team at peak performance.

A candidate’s complex problems occur when there is an imbalance between personalities within an organization.

For example, let’s say that there is a person on your team with a personality dominated by logic, predictability, consistent values, and close mindedness.

There are positives to working with a person with this personality but if we have too many people within an organization with the same personality, the organization will suffer from imbalance. Assessments help to add new and varying personalities to the team that will create balance, which will then cure and heal efficiencies within the workplace.

Personal attitude

How does your candidate view the world?

We have found that most people view the world in the same way they view themselves.

For example, the sun is shining outside. Jack sees this and now feels that today will be a great day. His attitude is positive, and he is excited to go to work, but the following day Jack gets up in the morning and sees that it’s dark outside and cold as well. His attitude changes and he is now depressed and doesn’t want to go to work. Jack sees the world the way he perceives it and based on his attitude. How he looks at the world is a reflection of his attitude; this clearly shows one’s natural behavior and inclinations. Assessments are designed to highlight the natural behavior and inclinations your candidate leans toward. Knowing this will help you pair this candidate’s personality with other employees, again, helping bring balance to the workplace.

Communication

Understanding how a candidate learns and communicates will help tailor the right kind of onboarding and management approach they’ll require to succeed.

Communication enhances relationships.
#Drshowalterjohnson

When using personality assessments, pairing the right personalities are important but you’ll find out that communication enhances relationships. The goal is clear communication between candidates or employees in the workspace as long as it brings people together and doesn’t cause divisions.

3.
Theory Behind Personality Assessments

Have you ever walked through the psychology section of your local library? If so, you’ll know there are many theories when it comes to the psychology of personality.

The evidence brought forth by psychology textbooks is largely theoretical. It doesn’t produce a model for everyday life, because the discussion is largely only around disturbances or personality disorders.

But what if you don’t have as disorder or aren’t experiencing a disturbance or breakdown? A good assessment will help with this because it will go beyond the psychology textbook and provide a more reflective approach.

Our model gets to the heart of what personality actually is and how it is properly measured.

The History of Personality Testing

In around the year 460 BC, Hippocrates suggested that humans had a persona—a personality comprised of four distinct temperaments. He suggested that whichever of the four temperaments were more dominant in a person determined their disposition and thus their different personality.

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt became not only the father of psychology but became the first person to draw a clear distinction between the human body and human personality.

The rise of this psychodynamic approach in the late 19th century led to a drastic change in the way that we viewed and understood personality in social situations within groups of people.

The founder of the psychoanalytical approach, Sigmund Freud, suggested that our personality was a lot more complex than originally suggested. That our behavior and personality is driven by our innate drives and needs.

The best outcomes of personality tests ranked in order

Dominance - direct, result-oriented, firm, strong-willed, forceful

Influence - outgoing, enthusiastic, optimistic, high-spirited, lively

Conscientiousness - analytical, reserved, precise, private, systematic

Steadiness - even-tempered, accommodating, patient, humble, tactful

This system was introduced in 1940 by Walter Clark whose “disc personality profile” was designed to measure: 1) dominance, 2) influence, 3) steadiness, and 4) conscientiousness

Clark’s model was created for sales training and organizational use.

Four elements

In our assessments we have found that there are four elements within nature that are also inherent within personalities. And while Walter Clark has created the disc personality profile, we have discovered these four elements within nature are:

Earth

Water

Fire

Air

These elements reveal traits like openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism.

These factors can be used to predict behaviors and beliefs. Later we will discuss in greater detail how these four elements work in personality assessments.

4.
The Ego

Dealing with the ego has proved to be one of the greatest challenges when providing personality assessments.

The ego can be healthy or unhealthy. When the ego is unhealthy, we have discovered that a person needs a correction within his or her desires in order for the ego to be balanced and healthy.

Measuring the ego through personality assessments is very important but has posed a challenge for many.

We measure the ego via emotional distance—where has the person come from in life, where are they currently, and where do they want to go.

The ego can only be measured against a group.

Individuals within a group normally start off with a certain amount of closeness. After a while the ties that bind the group become frayed and the group starts to grow apart. The wider the division within the group show us how we can measure the ego.

The ego can only be corrected in group therapy.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

When assessing personalities one can use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a chart to understand where a person’s level of needs is sits. We have found that the lower the level of need the more undeveloped the ego may be, but the higher the level of need the bigger the ego.

This strategy is very important because you are able to measure where a person is at in their personal development. You’ll be able to asses if they are able to respond well to the task you’ve given them.

Some candidates may truly be in survival mode, at the very bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs concerning their needs. But their personality might be great for the position.

Differentiating between a person’s level of need (according to Maslow) and their qualifications for a particular position can be a bit challenging.

What is the ego?

It is human nature for people to want to enjoy themselves. The ego’s intention is to enjoy as well but at others’ expense.

Our desire to enjoy is divided into social and spiritual desires.

Individual desires: food, sex, family, and shelter.

Social desire: money, honor, control, knowledge.

Spiritual desire: desire for spiritual knowledge and growth.

The ego becomes activated when money, honor, or control are in question. Once a person takes on that mindset, the ego kicks into gear, triggering their social desires.

Ego and social desires

Emotional viruses and social ills spread rapidly. If we don’t learn how to bring the right personalities together, the ego will continue to grow and destroy the organization. Many CEOs have lost a lot of money because of the ego of the people within their organization.

5.
Assessment of the Ego

What is the ego? Sigmund Freud states that the ego is the component of personality that is responsible for dealing with reality. According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world.

To put it more simply,

The ego is the intention or the desire to enjoy at another’s expense.
– Unknown

While personality assessment is important before hiring a candidate, it’s even more important to put into practice what you’ve learned from the assessment after they have been hired so that from a personality standpoint they are integrated strategically with the rest of the team. Egos that are imbalanced can cause major conflicts within organizations. Going on retreats, team exercises, and group meditation and wellness is all good. We see a lot of companies spending a great deal of money on the emotional state of their workers. But their employees return to work and find out they still have issues with interpersonal conflicts due to mismatched personalities and imbalanced egos.

Developing strategy to assess the ego within a group format saves CEOs a lot of money and helps mitigate or decrease workplace conflicts.

For example, in the workplace everything should be integrated and working together. If my attitude or behavior is pulling me in a different direction from everyone else, integrated harmony, then I create an imbalance within my organization. In situations like this it’s important to know how to measure the ego. After measuring and assessing the ego, you must work with the person to smooth out and help condition their ego. The problem arising from an unhealthy ego is correctable, and the lesson learned has the power to help the organization grow.

One example of how you can use the ego to help the organization grow: the ego is unhealthy when you want to gain but you don't want to put in the work. The ego is in a healthier place when you want to gain but you also put in the work.

Measuring the ego is important because if we don't measure and condition the ego, then conflicts will spread within the group. Every organization has a soul and that soul should be working together as one. If we don't measure the ego or assess it on a consistent basis then the soul of the workplace becomes unbalanced and sick; we won’t be efficient in our work anymore. Collectively we will need to be healed and that can only happen through conditioning of the ego.

Abraham versus Nimrod

The story about the Tower of Babel reveals the ancient secrets of culture. It also speaks about the first organization or structure developed in antiquity. However, Nimrod and Abraham were different in their leadership roles. Abraham came from a very respectable family and he studied the secrets of the culture of oneness and integration. He discovered a powerful secret—that the core element that makes up our existence is found between us, between the group. That concept is crucial for all cultures to understand and means that we’re all interconnected.

Abraham taught this strategy of integration and fully understood that one ugly disagreement or one division manifested between us as a people can create mass conflicts and wars. Whenever we are building a culture, we must think about what unites us. Abraham was more focused on this type of integrative leadership and on social interests. This “Abrahamic model” meant putting the culture, society, and group before any one person. Abraham’s strategy was to gather people together and to help them to focus on the common interest or interests between them. He made sure that there was clear communication between two people in order for properous growth and development of the group or society. Without this perspective, one could never transcend the culture.

What does “transcending culture” mean? It involves going up and rising above. In every organization or society there are conflicts that can lead to wars. Transcending culture is about focusing on the things that connect us while understanding that there will always be differences in opinions. That will never change but the more we understand that, the better and stronger we connect and build. When transcending culture, it is important to focus on what connects us so that we discover other people’s opinions as well as the conflicts so we rise above to become stronger.

All cultures are designed to transcend. Most organizations never transcend culture. However, the main goal for a culture is to transcend it. Rise above the indifferences and the wars and the conflicts—yet the ego is always present managing us; creating mutual hatred and division. But our focus as an individual within the group should be on what unites us and what we can do to keep our communication simple and clean. We should work toward raising one another up and working together even in the face of conflict. We should not teach people how to run away from conflict but rather to run toward it.

Oftentimes conflict resolution is so focused on the conflict rather than a solution that they never rise above it. Conflict resolution should be looked at in a different manner. Conflicts do not exist because you're losing ground, but because you're gaining it. We're supposed to transcend the culture and the inevitable conflicts that come up.

All leaders have been called to transcend the culture that they live in. If I am not able to transcend the culture, then I will not be able to lead it. Transcending the culture means that as I'm going up the mountain, there are wars and conflicts and the more I study them the stronger I become. This translates to more connectivity within my organization which then becomes tied together with stronger binds.

Transcending culture should be the goal of every culture. But while we are learning to transcend or rise above we will likely be discovering differences in opinions. As we work to understand those differences we become better and stronger. This is the concept behind transcending culture.

Now we want to take a look at Nimrod who gathered a group of people together to build a tower. This group of people looked like they were together, But Nimrod's model of organization was based on self-interests. At times, self-interest can look like collaboration. There are many instances where people within organizations gather together for a cause against a common threat. And it looks like as if they are one, but they are not. When their common enemy is defeated they will go back to working as individuals.

Nimrod's model can be found in a lot of organizations. People share a specific kind of trauma (someone who gets upset and puts their self-interests above the group’s) or a common enemy and unite against it—not for the benefit of the group but rather for their own self-interest. What they’re doing looks like it is collaboration, but it's not. The assumption under the all-too-common Nimrodic model is that when invididuals within the group share a kind of trauma or common enemy then they are compatible. But in reality these individuals may work together in harmony for a period of time but in the long run they will be incompatible and the group will fall apart.

Furthermore when a shared trauma exists and one person puts their interests above the group’s, factions will occur and the group will be split, one faction siding for and one against the person who has put themselves above the group. Self-interests, unfortunately are put before the health of the group. The Nimrodic model can therefore be referred to as the self-interest model.

Shared trauma is not compatibility, it is a social virus which is derived from an unhealthy ego. The only way to fix that is to correct one’s behavior and desire which we will look at a bit later.

What happens when a person puts self-interests before the group and before culture? Self-interest leads to self-isolation and an unhealthy manifestation of one’s ego. Many of us when we hear the word ego, automatically think “bad” because we see the ego as bad. But let’s change “good” and “bad” to healthy and unhealthy. An ego can be healthy or unhealthy or a little of both. The ego is unhealthy in someone who does not practive self-reflection or engage in self-knowledge. An unhealthy ego leads to the pursuit of self-interests over the group, which is, of course, unhealthy for the group.

The Inner Workplace

There is an inner workplace—similar in some ways to one’s external workplace—that is important to understand. This place is a picture of an invisible world where all of us as people are integrated together as one. Trying to separate those ties creates a bad connection between me and another person which can cause a lot of financial and productivity problems within an organization. Once we understand that we are all integrated as one rather than trying to disconnect, we will then work efficiently as a team.

When our ego is unhealthy and disconnects, the group becomes sick.

Challenges Arising from the Ego

The individual ego is a challenge to the group dynamic but can help raise everyone above petty conflict to become a solid unit. Where I work, we have constructed groups of ten people working together as a team in order to help fight the individual ego.

Many companies spend billions of dollars training their team, only to find out that after the conference or training, people go back to being their normal selves again. We may enjoy taking time off of work for holiday or family functions, but the ego never goes on a vacation.

The challenge arising from an individual ego is not about trying to destroy the ego (because it can’t be destroyed) but rather working to harness its power in a healthier manner. Once the ego is employed in a healthy way, it will improve upon any negative behavior, heal deficiencies, and correct any unhealthy wants or desires.

It could be said that all wars—whether on the battlefield, in court, or when holding a personal grudge—stem from an inflated and unhealthy ego. Correct the ego and the personality aligns itself organically.

Ego trumps personality.
#Drshowalterjohnson

If we connect to those around us in our workplace, and do so with empathy, we will begin to correct the ego.

The happiness we wish we enjoyed can only be obtained once we start placing our focus on what’s destroying our companies—the ego.

Understanding the challenges arising from ego is so important because it helps us assess where our organizations stand, and it indicates whether or not we are evolving as a team in a healthy manner.

Anthropology - According to the Ego

Anthropology is the study of human societies and cultures, and their development.

I can remember when I was a boy, about twenty-five years ago, communities were a bit closer than in the present day. Our neighbors would come over to our house and ask if they could have some sugar and we would do the same thing. Society was much more connected in person. With time I have realized that we have evolved and have become more disconnected with our friends, so much so that interactions between families and friends have become so divided. We have both physically and emotionally distanced ourselves from each other. This is an example of the ego evolving in an unhealthy manner.

This same behavior repeats itself in our daily lives, our personalities, our collective culture, and within the workspace. The challenge is to assess not only personalities but also the egos that exist within our organizations.

6.
Life Versus Existence

Organizations can do one of two things—produce life or simply exist. Living and existing oftentimes create conflicts, and living life is about touching and affecting others. Existence is actually about space and the self. So the question to ask—if I'm in an organization and if I'm in a culture, which one is more important because life and existence tend to clash a lot.

Let me give an example. There's a guy named John who's a part of a group. The group is there to produce life by touching each other. This is similar in the way you have plants, the soil, and water, all interconnected and producing life together. That's what much of life is about, one thing adding more value to the next thing. In a group or in a culture, everything should be focused on adding value to one other. So John is part of a group whose purpose is adding value to each member. But John's existence is so big that every time he walks into a room, everyone is intimidated by him or afraid of him. Every time he walks into the room, he thinks someone is talking about him, or every time he walks into a party and hears music being played, he thinks that the music is all about him. Like John, there are people within organizations who become a major problem because their existence conflicts with the culture of that group.

And so the question is life versus existence—which one is more important? In regard to culture, what should take precedence, my life or existence? The answer is life because life adds values to the culture. When a person’s existence takes up too much space it conflicts with life. We have to humble our existence—by monitoring our thought life—in order for life to work its magic and to add value to others.

Anything that takes up space exists. From a spiritual perspective our thoughts have existence. Within the context of a group, if an individual’s thoughts are too big and take up too much space, it will adversely affect the group. Humility in one’s existence is necessary for life and for collaboration to take place in a group.

Here is another example of how dangerous existence can be and how it collides and conflicts with life. A person is in a group and they get upset and leave the organization. When she leaves the organization, she calls all of the most important people within the organization to let them know why she left. But what is this woman’s motive in making these phone calls? This woman is trying to substantiate her existence. Remember, existence is about a person taking up space, which is what she is doing. Even though she is no longer working within the group, her existence becomes a threat to the culture within the organization. This is one of the impediments to prohibiting the culture from transcending above conflict.

A person within an organization will sometimes look to simply take up space. They want to justify their existence by causing conflict. So let's be cautious. So when a person does things in order to substantiate their existence, it is important to explain the purpose of existence so that these potentially toxic people don't create a purpose for their existence that will end up destroying the life of the organization.

Life is about adding value to every person you meet. But the purpose of existence is important for strategic positioning within the space. The purpose of existence is about space. In the space, you must understand how to strategically align people within that space. If you don't align leaders strategically within the space, then you have an imbalance. Earlier, we spoke about having too much of one element within a group, which can be dangerous because it creates an imbalance. We spoke about too much of the earth element create an imbalance and can create a shared trauma and a social virus.

But now, we're looking at the purpose of existence, and existence means space, and making sure that we place leaders in the right elements in order to bring balance to the right personalities so that they can inform each other within the space. Because if you place elements or you connect people with the wrong elements with each other in that space, then the existence of an individual becomes too too big to exist within the group. Let me give an example. If you place too much of an earth element person within a certain space, the existence of that earth element person starts to become a conflict. A person with that earth element within the organization becomes bigger than life. So, again, finding the right power balance is important when putting people in spaces because the purpose of existence is about space. And if you don't assemble elements or people properly within a group inside the space, then you're going to have an imbalance. A person's existence will become inflated and will become a major problem in the group. It will threaten the life of the group.

It’s important that we learn how the purpose of existence works as well as the importance of strategic positioning within a space. Putting an earth element person with an air element person, left brain and right brain personalities, is correct strategic positioning. You can produce better leaders if you know the purpose of their existence. What justifies the existence of a person in a group? Life. That's what justifies your existence. Oftentimes, we have people who are trying to substantiate their existence within a group. Do not try to substantiate your existence. Look for the thing that substantiates existence. The only thing that can substantiate existence is life. A person can't justify your existence, only life can.

Why do people come together over shared traumatic experiences, and why does this coming together look like compatibility? What happens is we have different types of characters or personalities. There are four different personalities that mirror the elements that we see in the world today. There is the earth mentality as well as fire, water, and air. And those four elements actually connect with people as well. All people have those four elements inside of them, but one element is the most dominant and strongest, which is different for every person.

Let's look at these four elements. We will not go into them in detail, but it's important to understand these elements and how they exist in people so that we can understand how to strike the right power balance to avoid shared trauma. Shared trauma manifests within groups because the leader doesn't know how to strike the right power balance. How do we strike the right power balance? By assembling a team and connecting each other with elements that are compatible. For example, we have the earth element which represents a person who is very logical. Their values never change. They are very passive, and that’s a good thing for that person. But the bad side is that they might be too rigid not too forgiving. Most earth element people are normally administrators, accountants—they’re very logical and consistent. But if you have too much of an earth element personality within your group, you're going to have an imbalance.

A shared trauma is going to arise because of the imbalance. Too much of one person means that everyone thinks and behaves alike. But the minute one person doesn't like something it grows into an emotional virus and everyone catches it right away.

So what I want to do to balance out the group is to add an element that will inform or counteract or bring balance to the earth personality. I need an air personality. An air personality is not logical. They are more right-brain. They talk a lot and have a lot of ideas that come quickly to them. They're very innovative and creative. So to strike a healthy power balance within my organization I have to find an air personality and connect them with the earth personality. Once I strike that balance, then I decrease the opportunities for emotional viruses and shared trauma because we have diversity between two different types of elements.

This is true compatibility because you take an air personality, someone who's right-brained and who's creative and talks a lot and you combine it with an earth personality who is logical and who is consistent. This decreases shared trauma because if one person feels a certain way, the next person is not going to join in right away because those two people think differently from one another. When you bring these two different personalities together you bring a balance, which represents true integration, true compatibility, and you decrease what we call social shared trauma.

Again, it's important that we understand that there are people who gather for self-interest but there are also people who gather for social interests. Keep this in mind when you are developing your group. Whenever there is self-interest and negativity and division, you will find that people are gathering as a herd at the wrong time. These people are coming together to bring separation and division to the group. This is important to understand as we move forward.

We spoke about the importance of the ego and how the ego can take over a person's life. The ego that is unhealthy dominates a person's life, especially when they are creating division and mutual hatred. But the ego, when it is healthy, can actually build a company. And so we've got to acknowledge that as well. We spoke a great deal about the negative parts of ego but when harnessed properly, the ego is a healthy and powerful tool and a force for good.