This is a helpful excerpt from the Wall Street journal that captures assessments as a foundational part of personal development, realizing your full potential and capacity.  Assessments are key for developing an evidence based approach in a professional coaching practice.  I've taken over 20 assessments myself, sometimes the same ones respeated over decades.  See if you agree with the assessments approach.  Thanks go to John Agno for the post on LinkedIn. 

Excerpted:

... coaches increasingly recognize that personality assessments can lead clients not only to greater self-insight but also to improved relationships.  The tests "can help get to the heart of the problem quickly," says Richard Levak, a Del Mar, Calif., psychologist, who uses them extensively in his practice.  "Too often psychologists operate on their intuition and clinical knowledge, but people are not often as they appear."

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When people take ...tests, their self-awareness goes up and they quickly figure out their strengths and weaknesses.  

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 A test might reveal that someone who appears jovial and self-effacing may actually be insecure and introverted—constantly working to play a role, he says.

via flickr.com

Consider what happens when an introvert comes home hoping to chill after a rough day at work—only to find his extrovert partner waiting to recap every moment of her day.  The introvert gets angry; the extrovert feels hurt.  The therapist or coach tells the extrovert that her spouse needs time alone; she tells the introvert that he needs to make an effort to come out and talk after he has decompressed. 

Introversion & extroversion are actually more complex and nuanced than described here, but the basic concepts still ring true.

What, exactly, is personality?

John D. Mayer, a psychologist and expert on personality testing at the University of New Hampshire, says it is "the system that organizes one's emotions, motives and capacities to think."  Personalities are partly innate, partly learned, he says; we can change them a bit, but it isn't easy.

The Myers-Briggs was developed in the 1940s by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Cook Briggs, who despite little advanced training in psychology, immersed themselves in the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and designed the questionnaire based on Jung's personality types.

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 Self-awareness facilitates change.

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When people take personality tests, their self-awareness goes up and they quickly figure out their strengths and weaknesses.  Self-awareness facilitates change.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2011   via coachingtip.com

After taking over 20 assessments myself, I've vetted the ones I would want to offer to my clients.  My current suite of assessments that I offer to business, leadership and change coaching clients includes, but is not limited to:

• The iWam, the inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation
• The MBTI, basic, Step II and more
• The StrengthsFinder assessment
• A new change, competence and importance assessment for being a "finisher in a world of starters) through a colleague
  
• Through a colleague, the Profiles International Checkpoint 360, the PPI, a DISC personality style instrument, the Profiles XT performance & career match assessment.

and more.   What has been your experience with self-assessment and self-awareness tools?

--Deb