Personality Types Under Stress

PERSUADER PERSONALITY TYPES UNDER STRESS

Persuaders get stressed if they feel they're being made to look stupid, or if they become excessively bored. The most happy-go-lucky, fun and easy-going persuader can transform into the most sarcastic, cruel and cutting verbal bully when under fire. They use their humor to hurt and will pull out every nasty remark, piece of gossip, hearsay and story against those they feel are attacking them or trying to bore them to death, if they think they can get away with it. Alternatively, if someone in authority is calling them on something they may try and make light of it, blame someone else or revert to sullen teenager "I'm not listening" behavior in order to protect themselves from being embarrassed.

Persuaders also dislike sharing the limelight and if someone else is stealing their thunder a battle of verbal wits may ensue that can escalate into a slanging match if you're not careful.

To avoid making the persuader throw his toys out of the pram, you need to do two things - if you're in a disciplinary situation, do it in private or make it quick and light-hearted if you have to do it in public. If you can see he's getting bored, involve him more directly, give him something to do or change the task he's become fed-up with.

The good news about persuader personality types under stress is that they tend to have very short memories and unless you do something really dreadful to them in public (in which case they will spend hours devising childish ways of getting you back) they are like the proverbial goldfish and will forget about it pretty quickly. In the meantime you can boost the persuader's ego a little by praising them in front of others and talking about what they do well. They are easily distracted and any kind of change of focus to something they do well and enjoy works really well.

If a fire alarm goes off the persuader will be telling off-color jokes, yelling "Fire!" and be very excited at the prospect of a break from whatever it was they were doing.

UNIFIER PERSONALITY TYPES UNDER STRESS

Unifiers are the ticking time bombs of the personality types under stress. They react to injustice on behalf of themselves and others and also can overreact if they feel that someone is being mean to them. They may take it and take it and take it until eventually a seemingly benign remark will result in a "lighting of the blue touch paper" and they will explode like volcanoes, spewing forth stored-up vitriol, sometimes the accumulation of weeks or months (or even years) of "incidents" that have led them inexorably to this startling display of rage. Things you weren't aware of doing, don't remember doing or didn't know were "hurtful" will be brought up and thrown at you, first with screaming and then even with crying. And then they sulk. Sometimes for days.

You can try heading this off at the pass by noticing when unifiers aren't happy about something - they tend to wear their hearts on their sleeves and aren't usually backward in coming forward when it comes to showing you how hurt they are. However, if you ask them if they're alright, the typical unifier answer is, "Fine, fine. No, I'm fine. Really, I'm fine." If you're persistent enough you may get to the bottom of it - otherwise it's like trying to get blood out of a stone.

Unifiers are like elephants - they might forgive, but they will never, ever forget. Empathising with them, getting them to talk about how they feel and acknowledging those feelings will go a long way to making these personality types under stress calm down and feel like they're being listened to.

If a fire alarm goes off the unifier will be making sure everyone is accounted for and no one is left behind. They will be worrying about others before themselves.

RULER PERSONALITY TYPES UNDER STRESS

Firey while it's happening and then it's gone in a trice - that pretty much sums up the ruler personality types under stress. They get stressed by things not happening as quickly as they would like them to, ineptitude on the part of people they've shown how to do something and things not being done just the way they like it. Their controlling tendencies become even more pronounced and their intolerance levels go through the roof. Renowned for their hot tempers, rulers' barks are actually worse than their bites - they're not vindictive like persuaders and they don't hold grudges like unifiers. Like persuaders, rulers tend to have a "control, alt, delete" mentality - they move on quickly to the next thing.

If a ruler has already "lost it", let them blow and then when they're done get them to suggest an action plan to fix the situation. Rulers generally have strong opinions about the way things should be done and relish an opportunity to tell you. Do not take their outbursts personally - emotional reactions to rulers' meltdowns don't get you very far. Deal with the issues and move on.

In an emergency-type stressful situation where the other personality types might not cope quite so well, rulers really rise to the challenge. Whether the decisions they make are right or wrong, rulers don't overthink like examiners and they don't worry about hurting other people's feelings like unifiers - they get on with dealing with the issue and worry about the consequences later.

If a fire alarm goes off the ruler will take charge and get everyone out of the building quickly.

EXAMINER PERSONALITY TYPES UNDER STRESS

Examiners get stressed about details - they worry if their plans get changed with too short a notice period or procedures have not been adhered to correctly. They love structure and when this breaks down they can become extremely stubborn and intractable. The typical examiner stance in this situation is arms folded, avoiding eye contact. They may resort to repeating their viewpoint over and over again if they don't think they've been understood and once you've put an examiner in this position it takes quite a bit of "talking them down" using logic and a structured approach. Examiners can be convinced with a detailed argument - you need to have a lot of patience, address each of their concerns in turn, and check that they are satisfied with the answer before moving on. Fluff and flippancy will get you nowhere with an examiner - they simply dig in even further.

If you haven't explained how to go about a task in a sufficiently detailed way and then are unavailable to clarify the process, examiners can become paralysed with over-analysis and end up like deer in headlights. To avoid this they tend to be the ultimate risk analysis experts with an emergency plan for every occasion.

Of all the personality types under stress, examiners find very busy, noisy environments unbearable, since they like to be able to focus and concentrate. They find persuaders particularly distracting, work best with peace and quiet and do not like to be interrupted. If an examiner has arranged to have her coffee break at 4pm, moving it to 4.30pm when something's come up will stress her out. Also, calling a meeting at short notice without providing an examiner with at least a broad outline of an agenda is to be avoided.

If a fire alarm goes off the examiner will be holding a clip-board with a list of correct procedures and will tick peopleoff as they leave the building. In a domestic situation examiners are the only ones who will actually have previously formed an escape plan in case of fire.

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