Project Manager Competencies and Personality Types

Project Management is fundamental to modern organizations and businesses of all sizes where competent project managers are increasingly needed. Successful projects are linked to..... Some literature and case studies argue that a project manager is a major factor related to the success or failure of projects. Project Managers are facing major challenges in planning, organizing and motivating efforts as a combination of personal characteristics and areas of competency is needed.

From a statistical point of view significant relationships between project success and a project manager's competencies have been identified. Some of those competencies are linked to a variety of personality types. There are studies which discuss the general personality type distribution among the population and others identify personality type distributions within certain populations, e.g. within project managers. Researchers could identify a unique personality type distribution among project managers which distinguish them from the normal population.

This article will take a look at the personality types of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and at general project manager competencies so as to examine the relationship of project manager competencies to certain personality types.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a psychometric questionnaire designed to enable classification of a persons's traits according to four dichotomous types: (1) Extrovert vs Introvert; (2) Sensing vs Intuitive; (3) Thinking vs Feeling; and (4) Judging vs Perceiving. The method was developed by Katharine C. Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs-Myers based on the personality theory of Carl Jung. In world War II, the MBTI method was used to assist in fitting a person to a job and vice versa. (1) From those different dichotomous types, any person can be classified in 16 personality categoriesThereby, any person can be