I’m not sure when I took my first personality test, but I think it was during my senior year in college. I had a mentor who swore by a book called Personality Plus and reading it introduced me to a lot of new ideas and helped me become more self-aware. Over the years, I’ve taken a variety of these types of tests and my results have become less and less surprising over time as each one focuses on certain specific attributes or ways of operating. I can’t pretend these assessments are scientifically rigorous, but they can be great tools.

While understanding yourself can bring great value to both work and relationships, one of the most impactful things for me when working with these tests is knowing and understanding my coworkers and peers better. It is easy to think that our personal experience is "normal." Learning about the other "types" is a helpful reminder that not only do other people operate and interact with the world differently than I do, but each of those differences brings value to the table when I choose to recognize and embrace those differences.

I was recently able to take part in a Clifton Strengths professional development opportunity at the Aeronautical Center. In one of our exercises, we discussed with each other which of our strengths frustrated ourselves and others with whom we interact. I was surprised to hear a recurring theme that the Analytical strength frustrated both coworkers and spouses alike. As someone in the engineering field, who works with both and have always lived with other engineers, this was fascinating to me because objective and dispassionate treatment of information is part of my normal makeup. For me, the Analytical strength, while helpful, is not unique on my team. It serves me well in my technical work, but in my role with relationship-related strengths (Harmony and Adaptability) these characteristics are more likely to complement the other strengths on my team.

Recently, I was excited to learn that the FAA has added new training resources for on-demand career development through eLMS, in addition to the courses, books, TED talks, and audiobooks that were previously available. As someone who is still in the early stages of my federal career, having a variety of resources about interviewing, career planning, and core competencies at my fingertips provides opportunities to learn and move my career forward.

In addition to these existing resources for personal development, there is also a new assessment tool, named Cloverleaf, that can benefit both employees and teams. Cloverleaf provides many different personality assessments for individual use. However, it also has the added benefit of being able to see and compare your behaviors and motivating values to those of others. You can look up other employees or create teams and view each member’s skills, personality traits, and strengths. Cloverleaf will show how team members’ traits interact together, compare preferences, and will provide additional insights on potential sources of conflict. These assessments have great potential for improving team dynamics and I’m looking forward to using them to gain new insights into my team members and working toward better collaboration together.