Top 5 alternatives to the Myers-Briggs test

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (“MBTI” or “Myers-Briggs” to its rapidly dwindling group of friends) is the personality test people love to hate. Our spotlight on MBTI’s shortcomings was the most popular post of 2014. Now it’s time to talk alternatives.

“The mistake is that people look at it as if it’s the beginning and end of it all, and that’s a mistake,” says Jacob M. Engel, author of The Prosperous Leader. “You need a multi-disciplinary, multi-tool approach.”

Big Five

As MBTI comes under fire, the Big Five’s star is in ascendance. Unlike MBTI, which focuses on a set of binary, this-or-that results on four dimensions, the Big Five delves into degrees and relative strengths. This eliminates the “clubby” aspect of MBTI typology, in which support groups and “hate threads” are quite common. It also deals more directly with characteristics that are desirable, or otherwise, in an employee, teammate, or manager.