A common starting point for organisations is: “We need a personality assessment.”
That sounds straightforwards, until the next question arrives. Which one?
For a busy HR lead, L&D manager or senior team, the choice can feel unnecessarily complicated. MBTI, Hogan, 16PF, FIRO-B and EQ-i are all credible tools, but they do different jobs. The risk is not usually choosing a “bad” assessment. The bigger risk is choosing a good assessment for the wrong purpose.
A team away day, a senior leadership programme, a recruitment process and an executive coaching assignment may all benefit from psychometric insight. But they do not need the same kind of insight.
So before choosing a tool, start with a better question.
Not: “Which assessment is best?”
But: “What decision, conversation or development outcome are we trying to support?”
Start with the problem you are trying to solve
Personality assessments are most useful when they are chosen against a clear purpose. Are you trying to improve communication in a team? Help managers understand their leadership style? Explore interpersonal tension? Add evidence to a recruitment process? Develop emotional intelligence? Understand how a leader may behave under pressure?
Those are different questions. They need different data.
For example, a leadership team that keeps misunderstanding one another may benefit from MBTI. A senior leader preparing for a bigger role may gain more from Hogan. A selection process may need a trait-based tool such as Hogan or 16PF, used alongside structured interviews and other job-relevant evidence. A team struggling with inclusion, influence or openness may benefit from FIRO-B. A leader who needs to improve empathy, resilience or emotional self-management may find EQ-i more useful.
The choice should follow the purpose.
MBTI: best for self-awareness, communication and team development
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, usually known as MBTI, is a type-based framework. It explores preferences across four areas: where people direct energy, how they take in information, how they make decisions and how they approach structure.
Its strength is accessibility. MBTI gives people a memorable language for everyday differences. It can help a team understand why one person wants time to reflect while another wants to talk ideas through. It can explain why some colleagues ask for detail while others want patterns and possibilities. It can also help people see why decision-making sometimes feels frustrating: one person may be prioritising objective logic, while another is paying close attention to values and people impact.
MBTI is best used developmentally. It is not a selection tool. Its value lies in helping people understand themselves and one another, not in judging whether someone is suitable for a job.
Use MBTI when you want to:
- improve communication in a team
- support team building or away days
- help managers adapt their leadership style
- reduce misunderstanding between colleagues
- create a practical language for working preferences
- help people value different ways of contributing
It is particularly useful when a group needs insight that can be applied quickly in meetings, feedback, collaboration and day-to-day working relationships.
Hogan: best for leadership, potential and derailers
Hogan is especially useful when the stakes are higher and the organisation wants deeper leadership insight. It is often described as looking at the bright side, the dark side and the inside of personality.
The Hogan Personality Inventory explores everyday working style. The Hogan Development Survey looks at potential derailers: behaviours that may show up under pressure or when strengths are overused. The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory explores what drives and motivates someone.
That combination can be powerful for leadership development. Many leaders succeed because of strong behavioural patterns: confidence, ambition, precision, independence, sociability or drive. But under pressure, those same patterns may become risks. Confidence can become arrogance. Precision can become micromanagement. Drive can become impatience. Independence can become detachment.
Use Hogan when you want to:
- develop senior leaders
- identify leadership risks under pressure
- support executive coaching
- explore leadership potential
- inform succession planning
- strengthen promotion or selection decisions
- understand motives, values and culture fit
Hogan should be interpreted carefully and in context. A profile does not make someone a good or bad leader. It helps identify patterns that may support or get in the way of leadership effectiveness.
16PF: best for detailed trait-based insight
The 16PF, or Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, is a trait-based assessment of normal personality. Rather than placing someone into a type, it explores personality characteristics on a range.
This makes it useful when an organisation needs a more detailed behavioural profile. It can support leadership development, coaching, recruitment, assessment centres and development planning.
Because 16PF measures traits rather than preferences, it can often be linked more directly to role requirements and behavioural indicators. For example, a role may require resilience, social confidence, independence, attention to detail or openness to change. A trait-based profile can help structure a conversation around those areas.
Use 16PF when you want to:
- understand personality in more detail
- support leadership development or coaching
- inform recruitment or assessment-centre decisions
- explore likely working behaviours
- compare personality data with role requirements
- support development planning
For selection, 16PF should never be the only source of evidence. It is strongest when used alongside structured interviews, simulations, work samples and other job-relevant methods.
FIRO-B: best for interpersonal needs and team relationships
FIRO-B explores interpersonal needs around Inclusion, Control and Affection, often described in workplace language as involvement, influence and openness. It looks at both what people tend to express towards others and what they want from others.
This makes it particularly useful for understanding team dynamics. A person may want to be included in decisions but not express that need clearly. Another may express a strong need for control but not realise that others experience this as limiting. Someone else may want more openness or connection than the team currently provides.
FIRO-B helps make these patterns discussable.
Use FIRO-B when you want to:
- improve team relationships
- explore participation and influence patterns
- support leadership and interpersonal development
- understand conflict or tension in a team
- improve trust and working relationships
- help new or changing teams work together more effectively
It is often at its best when combined with skilled facilitation. The report opens the door; the conversation creates the value.
EQ-i: best for emotional intelligence and leadership behaviour
EQ-i 2.0 measures emotional intelligence: how people recognise, understand, manage and use emotions in themselves and with others. It explores areas such as self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal skills, decision-making and stress management.
This makes EQ-i useful when the development goal is behavioural. A leader may need to improve empathy, assertiveness, stress tolerance, impulse control or emotional self-awareness. The EQ 360 version can also compare self-perception with how others experience the leader, which is often where the strongest insight sits.
Use EQ-i when you want to:
- develop emotionally intelligent leadership
- support coaching and behaviour change
- improve self-awareness and empathy
- build resilience and stress management
- develop interpersonal effectiveness
- use 360 feedback to deepen insight
EQ-i works well when an organisation wants leaders not only to understand themselves, but to change how they show up in real conversations.
A simple decision guide
If your main goal is team communication, start with MBTI.
If your main goal is leadership risk, potential or derailers, consider Hogan.
If you need detailed trait-based insight, consider 16PF.
If the issue is interpersonal needs, influence or team dynamics, consider FIRO-B.
If the focus is emotional intelligence and leadership behaviour, consider EQ-i.
Real organisational needs are often mixed. A senior team may use Hogan for individual leadership insight and MBTI or FIRO-B for team development. A recruitment process may use Hogan or 16PF alongside structured interviews and assessment exercises. A leadership programme may combine EQ-i with coaching and facilitated practice.
The important thing is to avoid choosing a tool in isolation. Good assessment work starts with a purpose, uses appropriate tools, and ends with practical action.
How Developing Potential can help
At Developing Potential, we help HR, L&D and senior leaders choose and use personality assessments in a practical, ethical and useful way. We work with tools including MBTI, Hogan, 16PF, FIRO-B and EQ-i, and we help organisations turn assessment insight into better conversations, stronger leadership and clearer development action.
If you are unsure which assessment is right for your organisation, we would be very happy to help you choose an approach that fits your goals. Contact Us.