Knowing your temperament helps in your search for a career or job, but it only serves as a guide, rather than giving you any fixed answer. Think of temperament as analogous to “culture” in terms of influence. If you are of certain culture, than you will tend to feel most comfortable in your culture, and you can operate well in that culture. But that does not mean that you cannot be happy and prosperous living in a culture that isn’t your original culture. The same is true with your career or job; you can find happiness and satisfaction in many careers or jobs that are not “natural” ones for one’s temperament. On the other hand, if you aren’t happy or you don’t think you are as effective as you could be in your current situation, then it would be useful in examining the match between your temperament and your current job or career.

What, we might ask is this thing called “temperament” and what relation does it have to character and personality? There are two sides to personality, one of which is temperament and the other character. Temperament is a configuration of inclinations, while character is a configuration of habits. Character is disposition, temperament pre-disposition. Thus, for example, foxes are predisposed—born—to raid hen houses, beavers to dam up streams, dolphins to affiliate in close-knit schools, and owls to hunt alone in the dark. Each type of creature, unless arrested in its maturation by an unfavorable environment, develops the habit appropriate to its temperament: stealing chickens, building dams, nurturing companions, or hunting at night.

Put another way, our brain is a sort of computer which has temperament for its hardware and character for its software. The hardware is the physical base from which character emerges, placing an identification fingerprint on each individual’s attitudes and actions. This underlying consistency can be observed from a very early age—some features earlier than others—long before individual experience or social context (one’s particular software) has had time or occasion to imprint the person. Thus temperament is the inborn form of human nature, character, the emergent form, which develops through the interaction of temperament and environment.

There are four temperament dispositions: Guardian’s Artisans, Idealist and Rationals. I want to emphasize that temperament, character, and personality are configured, which means that, not only are we predisposed to develop certain attitudes and not others, certain actions and not others but that these actions and attitudes are unified—they hang together. Thus, the Artisans base their self-image on graceful action, bold spirit, and adaptability to circumstance, these three traits evolving together of necessity. Furthermore, these three traits developing together as if out of a single seed preclude emergence of a self-image based on, say, empathy, benevolence, and authenticity, which are characteristics of the Idealist. In the same way, the Guardians base their self-image on reliability, service, and respectability, these three traits emerging together as a unified structure of personality. And again, the unfolding of these three traits emerging together weighs against developing a self-image based on ingenuity, autonomy, and willpower, which is characteristic of the Rationals.

Many people want to know what kind of job they are suited for, based on the fact they are of a certain type. Is there a program using the percepts of Temperament Theory to help in finding a career or a job? You can explain the different natural talents of the temperaments, but finding the right job or right career is a little complex.



This article was based on Please Understand Please and Please Understand Me II authored by David Keirsey[/i]

Consider this post as the second and final part of the one above. All and any inconvenience regretted.

THE FOUR TEMPRAMENTS AND THEIR VOCATIONAL INCLINATIONS.

The Idealists

Idealist, being abstract in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals, can become highly skilled in diplomatic integration. Thus their most practised and developed intelligent operations are usually teaching and counseling. And they would if they could be sages in one of these forms of social development. The Idealist temperament have an instinct for interpersonal integration, learn ethics with ever increasing zeal, sometimes become diplomatic leaders, and often speak interpretively and metaphorically of the abstract world of their imagination. They are proud of themselves in the degree they are emphatic in action, respect themselves in the degree they are benevolent, feel confident of themselves in the degree they are authentic. Idealist types search for their unique identity, hunger for deep and meaningful relationship, wish for a little romance each day, trust their intuitive feelings implicitly, aspire for profundity.

This is the “Identity Seeking Personality” – credulous about the future, mystical about the past, and their preferred time and place are the future and the pathway. Educationally they go for the humanities, vocationally for ethics, and vocationally for personnel work.

In their family interactions they strive for mutuality, provide spiritual intimacy for the mates, opportunity for their children, and for themselves continuous self-renewal. Idealists do not abound, being as few as 8% and nor more than 10% of the population.

Well known Idealists include Jane Fonda, Leo Tolstoy, Oliver Stone, Mohandas Ghandi, Mikhail Gorbachev, E. Roosevelt, Plato.

Idealist’s Quotes
“It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business”. (MOHANDAS GANDHI)

“Character is much easier kept than recovered” (THOMAS PAINE)

“To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.” [ANNE LINDBERGH]

The Vocational Interest of Idealists.
In the workplace, Idealists have one special talent: they are drawn to and can do wonders in recruiting, training, deploying, advancing, and counseling personnel. With their insight into people, their interest in human potential, and their glow of enthusiasms, Idealists shine when they take on the job of finding quality employees, of guiding them into the right positions, and of helping them develop over the course of their careers.

Not only in business, but at school as well, individual development is the Idealist’s domain, which is to say they are naturally good at influencing the growth and maturation of others. Teaching, counseling, interviewing, and tutoring come easily to Idealists, and are highly intuitive pursuits for them. Even without much formal training, Idealists seem able, in Faber and Mazlish’s phrase, to “talk so others will listen and listen so others will talk” and this with young and old and with male and female.


The Rationals

The Rationals, being abstract in communicating and utilitarian in implementing goals, can become highly skilled in STRATEGIC ANALYSIS. Thus their most practiced and developed intelligent operations tend to be marshalling and planning, or inventing and configuring. And they would if they could be wizards in one of these forms rational operation. They are proud of themselves in the degree they are competent in action, respect themselves in the degree they are autonomous, and feel confident of themselves in the degree they are strong willed. Ever in search of knowledge, this is the “Knowledge Seeking Personality” – trusting in reason and hungering for achievement. They are usually pragmatic about the present, skeptical about the future, solipsistic about the past, and their preferred time and place are the interval and the intersection. Educationally they go for the sciences, avocationally for technology, and vocationally for systems work. Rationals tend to be individualizing as parents, mindmates as spouses, and learning oriented as children. Rationals are very infrequent, comprising as few as 5% and more than 7% of the population.


Well know Rationals include George Bernard Shaw, Walt Disney, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Thatcher, Napoleon Bonaparte, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, George Soros, Albert Einstein, Adam Smith, Aristotle, Marie Curie.

Rational quotes.
“To me it suffices to wonder at these secret and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is”. Albert Einstein.

“I have taken all of knowledge for province”. Francis Bacon.

“Error of opinion maybe tolerated where reason is left free to combat it”. Thomas Jefferson.

“But I’m not using those lessons just for theorizing about the future, I am betting on it”.
Bill Gates


The vocational interests of rationals.
Rationals are intrigued by machines and by organisms, the two kinds of systemic entities. Organisms are the province of anthropologists, biologists, ethnologists, psychologists; machines, the regulated by servo-mechanisms developed by engineers. Of course, an organism, whether plant or animal is infinitely more complex than the most modern airport, a giant machine itself with countless sub-assemblies. But whatever the level of complexity it is complexity itself that intrigues the Rationals and therefore beckons them to take up systems-work, whether it be organismic or mechanical.

The Guardian

The Guardian, being concrete in communicating and cooperative in implementing goals, can become highly skilled in LOGISTIC. Thus their most practiced and developed intelligent operations are often supervising and inspecting (administering), or supplying and protecting (conserving). And they would if they could be magistrates watching over these forms of social facilitation. They are proud of themselves in the degree they are reliable in action, respect themselves in the degree they do good deeds, and feel confident of themselves in the degree they are respectable. In search of security as they are the “Security Seeking Personality” – trusting in legitimacy and hungering for membership. They are usually stoical about the present, pessimistic about the future, fatalistic about the past, and their preferred time and place is the past and gateway. Educationally the go for commerce, avocationally for regulations, and vocationally for material work. They tend to be enculturating as parents, helpmates as spouses, and conformity oriented as children. There are Guardians even than more Artisans around, at least 40% and as many as 45% of the population.

Well known Guardians include Jimmy Stewart, Thomas Hardy, Kareem Abul-Jabbar), George Washington, Queen Elizabeth II, George Bush, John Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, W.K. Kellogg Thomas Hobbes, Mother Theresa.


Guardian quotes.
“The buck stops here”. Harry Truman

”Let no ever come to you without leaving better and happier”. Mother Teresa

“I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable titles the character of an “Honest Man.” George Washington

“Just give me the facts, ma’am” Jack Webb

“Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be man so wise as themselves”. Thomas Hobbes



The Vocational Interest of Guardians
Guardians are interested in occupations that have to do with procedures for managing material and services, this is, for gathering, storing, recording, measuring, and distributing services, equipment and supplies. In jobs of this nature the Guardians are incomparable, for no other area of work is so well suited to standard operations and by-the-book procedures. Of course, Guardians come up with new ideas too, their creatively comes to the fore most easily in the areas of arranging and scheduling, and establishing order and organizations.

Optimal arrangement, requisite order, uniform size and substance: these notions are near and dear to Guardians, and perhaps this is why they find such satisfaction in office work and clerical jobs – keeping records, checking inventory, attending to correspondence, filing, accounting – with the brightest becoming executives, administrators, plant or office managers, with the giants of the business world – particularly in commodities, finance, from J.P. Morgan to E.F. Hutton, from J.C. Penny to F.W. Woolworth.


The Artisans

Artisans, being concrete in communicating and utilitarian in implementing goals, can become highly skilled in TACTICAL VARIATION. Thus their most practiced and developed intelligent operations are usually promoting and operating [expediting], or displaying and composing [improvising]. And they would if they could be virtuosos of one of these forms artistic operation. Artisans are proud of themselves in the degree they are graceful in action, respect themselves in the degree they are daring, and feel confident of themselves in the degree they are adaptable. This is the “Sensation Seeking Personality” – trusting in spontaneity and hungering for impact on others. They are usually hedonic about the present, optimistic about the future, cynical about the past, and their preferred time and place is the here and now. Educationally they go for arts and crafts, avocationally for techniques, and vocationally for operations work. They tend to be permissive as parents, playmates as spouses, and play oriented as children. There are many Artisans to be found in many places where the action is, at least 35% and as many as 40% of the population.

Well known Artisans include Elvis, Presently “Magic” Johnson, Clint Eastwood, Winston Churchill, Boris Yeltsin, Franklin Roosevelt, Donald Trump, Jean – Jacques Rousseau

Artisan quotes
“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we will never surrender”. Winston Churchill,

“Be water, my friend. [On the subject of flexibility and adaptability] [Bruce Lee]”

“Censorship may be useful for preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration”.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

“If scientific discovery has not been an unalloying blessing, if it has conferred on mankind the power not only to create but also to annihilate, it has at the same time provided humanity with a supreme challenge and a supreme testing. John F. Kennedy”.

The vocational interest of artisans
Artisans are happiest when working with any and all sorts of equipment. Apparatus, implements, machines, and instruments captivate them; they are things to be used – employed, deployed – and the Artisans cannot not operate them. They must drive the bulldozer, pilot the plane, steer the boat, fire the gun, toot the horn, wield the scalpel brush, pen or chisel.

They can become interested in kind of Artcraft must not be limited to the so-called fine arts, such as painting and sculpture, or the performing arts, music and dance, but in fact includes athletic, culinary, literary, martial, mechanical, rhetorical, theatrical, political, and industrial arts, not to mention what Donald Trump called the “Art of the Deal” in big business.

Now that you kno, what job/vocation is best for you?



This article was based on Please Understand Please and Please Understand Me II authored by David Keirsey