I’m a big reader. I believe that leaders are readers and by reading someone’s thoughts and opinions on an important set of topics, I’m receiving decades of lessons and experiences in less than a month. So when people ask me about some of my favorite books, I tend to begin with “What are you really asking?”
Because I love personal development books, professional development books, books on leadership, books on thinking and the science of neuroplasticity, science fiction books, classic literature, and everything in between. So if someone is looking for a book suggestion, I normally ask them why they are asking, so I can give a better recommendation.
But when someone asks me something like this: “What book – outside of the Bible – has made the biggest difference in your life?” – that’s an easy answer. It’s definitely “Personality Plus” by Florence Littauer.
There are a lot of great materials out there to teach the personalities and temperaments; learning from any of them is better than learning from none of them (I also really enjoy the DISC model and the Myers-Briggs, which are 2 completely different types of tests). I enjoy Florence Littauer mainly because of her idea that the main reason for her book is to get along with other personality types, not just to understand yourself (but that’s still fun and important).
Because of everything that Laura and I have learned through her book and through the association of people who are all encouraged to read it, we have a MUCH better marriage today. It’s not because we have “chunked” each other into little fences of personality types – it’s because I have chosen to work on myself and she works on herself, which leads to a marriage of mutual understanding. We have also taught this material dozens (maybe hundreds) of times over the last 5 years.
I would like to share a couple of thoughts from that book, since I just finished reading it and making notes for what feels like the 20th time. While these few lines obviously won’t share all of the nuggets I’ve learned, I hope that you will be encouraged to pick it up and read it for yourself, AND that you will be encouraged that better human relationships are not only possible – they’re available to anyone who will put in the work.
“Positives carried to extremes can become negatives.” – All of us have wonderful gifts, talents, abilities, and traits that we have been created with to make a difference in the world. But if we’re not careful, we can carry these strengths into a selfish life and not truly care about how we are treating other people. This is why when Laura and I teach these principles that we encourage everyone to view themselves from the eyes of others. A selfish life is an unfulfilled life, and only focusing on how our strengths can benefit ourselves is a dangerous path.
“In a survey I took at a seminar on what traits people disliked most in others, the winner was ‘Bossy.’ No one like bossy people. I asked them to write a second list of what negative traits they had, and not one of them was bossy. The obvious conclusion is that over-bearing people don’t see themselves as others do.” – This one speaks for itself – good point, and dangerous potential for self-deception!
“It’s not the label of your temperament that matters, but the understanding of your own personality strengths and weaknesses that is important.” – If we learn about the temperaments and personality tendencies only to label people and blame our actions on our temperament, then we have completely missed the point. We must understand who we are to truly make changes internally.
“It is important to look at our childhood pain and rejection in order to find out why we behave the way ew do, BUT this search is NOT to place blame; it is to bring a measure of understanding and cause us to begin a healing process.” – I see many people today looking backward to begin understanding why they act and react the way that they do… that’s healthy. But the moment that this backward view begins a game of pointing fingers and blaming people and circumstances, then the practice is losing its effectiveness and is becoming dangerous towards our future. The reason that the rear-view mirror in a car is so much smaller than the front windshield is because knowing what is behind you is important, but only to be able to travel forward safer. Staring into the rear-view mirror consistently is not a healthy proposition for a journey.
“Dare to ask others: ‘If I were going to work on one area of my personality, where do you think I should start?'” – Are you brave enough to try this? Only ask people who you trust to be honest and kind.
“We should never use this knowledge to judge or label anyone, but just to help us in our relationship with others and in anticipating reactions.”
And here’s one more for the ultimate point of studying the temperaments:
“One of the greatest assets in learning about temperaments is the pressure it removes from our expectations of others.”
Read… Learn… Apply… Use what you learn to better your human relationships.
Just a thought.
Chris Craft
