Dominant personality types of insurance executives from different departments: Implications for selection and placement

Pages: 01-06
Diljot Soin and Sudha Banth (Department of Psychology, Panjab University, Chandigarh)

The present research examined the personality types of the male managers from different departments of the private Insurance Companies, viz., sales, operations, human resource. This paper makes contribution by probing the dominant and auxiliary functions of the personality types that makes the managers function effectively in the above said departments. For this purpose, MBTI test by Myers and McCauley (1985) was conducted on the sample of 150 male middle-line managers (50 from sales, 50 from operations, 50 from human resource, i.e., HR department) within the age group of 35-45 years, selected randomly from the Private Insurance Companies of the tri-city of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali. The results indicated that “ESTJ” was the most common occurring personality type among managers of Insurance Sector irrespective of their departments. Thinking and sensing emerged as the most common dominant and auxiliary functions respectively among them. The results further revealed that preference for the dominant function, i.e., extraverted thinking was greatest among the managers from sales and operations department whereas among the managers from human resource department preference for the auxiliary function, i.e., introverted sensing was greater than the managers from sales and operations departments. Post-hoc comparisons showed that managers from sales were found to be significantly higher than managers from operations and human resource (p < 0.005), and managers from operations were found to be significantly higher (p < 0.005) than managers from human resource on the dominant function of extraverted thinking. Whereas mangers from human resource and operations were found to be significantly higher (p < 0.005) than the managers from sales, and managers from human resource were found to be significantly higher (p<0.005) than managers from operations on the auxiliary function of introverted sensing.