Back to: Phase 1: Gathering the Team
Understanding yourself by taking a personality test
Any individual can benefit from a well-structured personality test, by gaining insight into their own strengths, weaknesses and other traits. Likewise, teams can benefit from the same insights, from improving communications between team members, to assigning roles base on each individual’s strengths and weaknesses.
We have highlighted two well-respected personality tests in this lesson, the Clifton Strengths Test and the Big 5 Personality Tests.
Please use the toggle below to read more about each.
Clifton Strengths Test
Big Five Personality Test
The Clifton Strengths Test is a 30-minute assessment that includes 177 paired statements. Different questions or cases are presented and must be answered within twenty seconds. The assessment is designed to measure and score talents, thinking patterns, feelings, and behavior. Once all the paired statements have been scored, a report is generated. The report clarifies the five strongest themes (of a total of 34 themes) in 4 domains.. These domains describe how people and teams use their talents when processing information, performing tasks, influencing others and building relationships.
Supplementary reading:
Cohen, C. M., and Cohen, S. L. (2018) Lab Dynamics: Management and Leadership Skills for Scientists. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.