I started this self-analysis assignment by conducting two activities. The 16 personality test and then the personal business model. By the end of this report, I wish to have a fresh look at my personality, along with how I do things and the reasoning behind those choices.
Deconstruction
To deconstruct my personality, I first looked into the report my personality report. It concludes that I’m in a type called Protagonist, or ENFJ-A. Interestingly, I found two sentences from the report to be particularly interesting, it says
“Protagonists are natural-born leaders, full of passion and charisma. Forming around two percent of the population, they are oftentimes our politicians, our coaches, and our teachers, reaching out and inspiring others to achieve and to do good in the world. (“Protagonist Personality”, n.d.)”
One thing that frequently bothered me when doing team activity both at school at work, is that I almost always became the person in the leadership position, in the end, no matter most of the time I just want to be an observer in the first place. It turns out that being the lead is potentially one of my personal strengths. During many team activities, I found most of the time people are just waiting for instructions, and everyone is waiting for each others’ action. It’s not because they are lazy or something, many people just like to work this way. And this made me constantly have to be responsible for the lead job and assign tasks out and monitor the progress.
However, just as almost everything has two sides, I found that being in the lead position could somehow be my weakness at the same time. Being in lead, what I usually do is to assign tasks to different people, while I have faith in each individual to finish their part with high quality, but I also found this approach somehow discourage communication. Over- trusting others can also be a weakness, which I had experienced many times in a hard way. My personality makes me always trust others, but I for sure need to define some rules up front to prevent bad outcomes.
Why Statement
In a personal statement on my website, I described myself as “An extraordinary Individual. Appreciate well-thought simplicity. Always deliver the best. Love top quality & designed item. Focus on creating things that enhance people’s life. I’m a firm believer in lifelong learning. If there is a challenge, I’m willing to learn whatever needed to get it solved elegantly.”
Thinking about it right now, I still see this as an answer to my Why statement. What motivates me to do a lot of things, is that I want to use my creative skill to ultimately enhances everyone’s life. Although that doesn’t mean to sacrifice myself, I believe that during the journey of creating things that raises the value to others, I’m also the biggest beneficiary.
How to evaluate the effectiveness of my why statements? I seek help from the value proposition questions. That is what contributes to my feeling of fulfillment, as well as what are the most important things to myself when I consider new opportunities.
The answers to those questions, from my perspective, is that the joy of thinking a lot of people would have a smooth and enjoyable experience using the product or service I created. When seeking for new opportunities, I sincerely hope that the people I’m helping with could be even more successful using the solution I created. That is what I considered the most when facing new opportunities, which is whether it is going to generate value in the long run.
Others in my Eye
Nothing is completed if others, or the world around us is not being considered. As requested in the outline, I’ll start analysis others by identification of the personality traits of entrepreneurs and company leaders.
Some of my favorite talks are coming from two person, Steve Jobs and Simon Sineks. Those two are great leaders in their area, and I wish to use their insights to describe the leaders’ personality. Steve Jobs asked the audience to consider what would you do if today is the last day of your life (Jobs, 2005). That is my first identification of the quality needed to be the leader, to have the clear vision and let others join you. The successful leader are those who lead the way, while in the mean time have faith in what they are doing in the first place.
The second identification is from a talk by Simon Sineks, he said the a good leader always eat the last in the company (Sinek, 2013). What it actually means, is that the leader needs to stand up to take responsibility for the followers, protect them and give them environment to grow.
Although leaders could have the perfect personality, that didn’t means the entrepreneurship is always fun and engaging. It’s actually another way around most of the time. Elon Mask once said in an interview, that he is still constantly in fear, in more fear than he would like (Mask, 2017).
Personal Business Model
In the personal business model, I conducted myself willing to help small business growth and succeed, as well as using my skills to create value for the world.
Personally, I enjoy interacting with people face to face because I found this is a percent moment to give the others the impression that you really care, and direct interaction can ease out many unnecessary misunderstandings. In the meantime, I also value my time a lot, I would avoid meaningless long conversation with the preference to small talks that actually get a particular problem solved.
I found that by viewing myself from the business model perspective, it’s pretty much the same thing. Especially the value proposition section that worth particular attention. Knowing that I’m going to bring the smoother workflow to the table and thinking about the value I can create for the customer, really helps me thinking about the business I’m going to create in the future. In an exaggeration, I now view many a company is an extension and reflection of their leader’s actions.
Conclusion
I hardly had the incentive to do a self-analysis, and I found writing this article to be a particular meaning for me. I was able to go through some pitfalls, experience, reflection about the materials I learned and could be very beneficial for my career goal in the long run. I wish and truly want to become an entrepreneur in the game of software industries in the foreseeable future. When I look at this world, I see many many things that worth improving, and I hope I can use my strengths to make it a bit better.
Reference
Protagonist Personality. Retrieved from https://www.16personalities.com/enfj-personality
Jobs, S. (2005). How to live before you die. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die
Sinek, S. (2013). Why Leaders Eat Last. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ReRcHdeUG9Y
Mask, E. (2017). Elon Musk On Fear. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=YH1txRfa0oY