Managerial Psychological Type and Employee Empowerment

This study sought to discover if a relationship existed between the personality type of a group of managers and their empowering performance, and attempted to ascertain which personality types empowered their direct-reports more than others.  The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was utilized to determine the personality types of the participating managers and a One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was performed to examine the relationships existing between the participating managers and a base population of managers (CAPT Atlas of Type Table #8629331).  Participating managers were shown to prefer the personality preference of Extraversion (p≤ 0.01) compared to the base population of managers.  Analysis of the MBTI mental pairs revealed a statistical significance (p≤ 0.01) existed for the Sensing-Thinking (ST) preference among the managers compared to the managerial base population.  The two most frequent MBTI types reported in the study were ENTJ (23.81%) and ESTJ (17.86%).   The two most common mental functions reported by managerial participants were the Sensing-Thinkers (ST) and the Intuitive-Thinkers (NT).  The use of the Balance of Empowerment model (Briggs, 1999) was utilized to determine the level of empowerment provided by each of the managers, across 9 interrelated leadership behaviors, as viewed by their individual direct-reports.  These nine behaviors are grouped under the headings of Trust, Enablement, and Encouragement.  Managers with a personality preference for either Sensing or Feeling were shown to provide greater levels of Trust and Encouragement (p≤ 0.01), as opposed to their dichotomous opposites.  The findings also confirmed a statistical difference (p≤ 0.01) in perceived empowerment among the subordinate behaviors of Responsibility, Resources, Mentorship, and Communication in the managers with a personality preference for Sensing; and a statistical difference (p≤ 0.01) in perceived empowerment among the subordinate behaviors of Responsibility, Authority, Resources, Mentorship, and Motivation in the managers with a personality preference for Feeling.  No statistical significance was found between Extraverted and Introverted managers and their perceived ability to empower their direct-reports across any of the behaviors of the Balance of Empowerment model.