Welcome to Your
Top Personality Trait
A Lucidata @Work Report
The results are in! The biggest part of your personality: SPONTANEOUS!
What does this mean? Relative to all of your other trait scores, you scored highest on the Spontaneous side of the Logistics trait (more on this below).
There’s much more to you, of course, but like the proverbial tip of the iceberg, when it comes to your personality, this is the part of you that stands out the most.
Welcome to Your
Top Personality Trait
A Lucidata @Work Report
The results are in! The biggest part of your personality: SPONTANEOUS!
What does this mean? Relative to all of your other trait scores, you scored highest on the Spontaneous side of the Logistics trait (more on this below).
There’s much more to you, of course, but like the proverbial tip of the iceberg, when it comes to your personality, this is the part of you that stands out the most.
Understanding the ALIVE Big 5
As opposed to unscientific personality tests that try to put everyone into either/or personality boxes (i.e., you’re either introverted or extroverted), Lucidata employs the rigorously researched and tested Big 5 theory of personality. Meaning, personality – though wildly complicated and endlessly fascinating – can be accurately predicted by scoring responses on 5 major personality traits. This is an example of the ALIVE Big 5 in action (although this is not your set of scores – those are available in a different report).
With this full spectrum of personality in mind, think of your Spontaneous personality as one of the two behavioral poles at opposite ends of the Logistics trait. At one end of that trait is you, a Spontaneous type, and at the other end is your opposite, a Structured type.
This means you scored strongest (or furthest from the midpoint) on the Logistics trait and relative to your other trait scores. And in your case, you scored strongest on the Spontaneous side of that trait.
Understanding the ALIVE Big 5
As opposed to unscientific personality tests that try to put everyone into either/or personality boxes (i.e., you’re either introverted or extroverted), Lucidata employs the rigorously researched and tested Big 5 theory of personality. Meaning, personality – though wildly complicated and endlessly fascinating – can be accurately predicted by scoring responses on 5 major personality traits. This is an example of the ALIVE Big 5 in action (although this is not your set of scores – those are available in a different report).
With this full spectrum of personality in mind, think of your Spontaneous personality as one of the two behavioral poles at opposite ends of the Logistics trait. At one end of that trait is you, a Spontaneous type, and at the other end is your opposite, a Structured type.
This means you scored strongest (or furthest from the midpoint) on the Logistics trait and relative to your other trait scores. And in your case, you scored strongest on the Spontaneous side of that trait.
Your Spontaneous Personality Explained
Spontaneous types open their eyes each day to a universe teeming with possibilities, and possibly rules meant to be broken (or, at best, casually acknowledged). For understandable reasons, this can be an incredibly liberating and refreshing way to live one’s life. The day’s ‘agenda’ can be little more than whatever pops into the noggin’ at any given time, or whatever’s most pressing.
Family, friends, and peers likely think of you as highly impulse-driven, carefree, and easy-going. It’s the first beautiful day of spring? Forget work, let’s get outside! Trying to lose weight but there’s a new ice cream shop on the corner? Time for some ice cream.
That’s the challenge for Spontaneous people – reality has a way of intruding on those spur-of-the-moment decisions. You may opt to skip the morning meeting, ignore the Do Not Enter sign, or choose to dive headfirst into the lake, but your boss, the property owner, or Mother Nature may have other ideas.
Your casual attitude toward a work project or To Do list may seem carefree to your friends but seen as irresponsible or even contemptuous by your more conscientious counterparts. And over time your ‘flexibility’ with commitments, rules, or potentially even the truth will prompt others to question much of what comes out of your mouth.
Because Spontaneous people are often haunted by self-doubt, their habits of unreliability, disorganization, and making misleading statements can exacerbate that self-doubt, which of course leads to still more self-doubt, and so on. Unless such patterns of behavior are identified and stopped, Spontaneous types can find themselves in a fairly deep hole of their own digging.
Your Spontaneous Personality Explained
Spontaneous types open their eyes each day to a universe teeming with possibilities, and possibly rules meant to be broken (or, at best, casually acknowledged). For understandable reasons, this can be an incredibly liberating and refreshing way to live one’s life. The day’s ‘agenda’ can be little more than whatever pops into the noggin’ at any given time, or whatever’s most pressing.
Family, friends, and peers likely think of you as highly impulse-driven, carefree, and easy-going. It’s the first beautiful day of spring? Forget work, let’s get outside! Trying to lose weight but there’s a new ice cream shop on the corner? Time for some ice cream.
That’s the challenge for Spontaneous people – reality has a way of intruding on those spur-of-the-moment decisions. You may opt to skip the morning meeting, ignore the Do Not Enter sign, or choose to dive headfirst into the lake, but your boss, the property owner, or Mother Nature may have other ideas.
Your casual attitude toward a work project or To Do list may seem carefree to your friends but seen as irresponsible or even contemptuous by your more conscientious counterparts. And over time your ‘flexibility’ with commitments, rules, or potentially even the truth will prompt others to question much of what comes out of your mouth.
Because Spontaneous people are often haunted by self-doubt, their habits of unreliability, disorganization, and making misleading statements can exacerbate that self-doubt, which of course leads to still more self-doubt, and so on. Unless such patterns of behavior are identified and stopped, Spontaneous types can find themselves in a fairly deep hole of their own digging.
The Six Facets of Your Top Trait
Every major trait is composed of six facets. As with the larger traits, facets exist on a spectrum. This means you likely scored high on some, low on others. In other words – and this is important – not all of these apply to you equally if at all. A fuller report of all traits and their facets will be available in the future. Click on any of the facets below for a brief description.
The Six Facets of Your Top Trait
Every major trait is composed of six facets. As with the larger traits, facets exist on a spectrum. This means you likely scored high on some, low on others. In other words – and this is important – not all of these apply to you equally if at all. A fuller report of all traits and their facets will be available in the future. Click on any of the facets below for a brief description.
Feeling uncertain about your ability to accomplish things, achieve your goals, and trust yourself to effectively work through significant challenges.
Being naturally compelled to leave things as they lay and straighten up things only when pressured to do so; avoid using systems to keep things in order.
Living by ‘the spirit of the law’ rather than the letter of it; bending the truth or outright lying in difficult moments; failing to keep promises or follow-through; not doing what is expected of you without care or respect for tradition or authority.
Being unhurried; not putting your nose to the grindstone; being laidback; not setting very high standards for yourself or others.
Showing poor follow through with commitments; procrastinating; not getting started on things (before the last minute); and having challenges with dependability.
Making quick decisions; failing to consider options before making a decision; not thinking about the purpose and goals before jumping in headfirst.
How Others See You
When it comes to others, your top personality trait is, of course, just one part of the equation. Where others rank on that same trait will go a long way in determining how you engage with each other – at work, at home, and everywhere in between.
A more Structured personality, for example, may find your impulsive nature to be a source of frustration. Or, that same individual may be marvel (and even secretly admire) the carefree way you flout rules that others find repressive.
With that said, here are just some of the ways your Fans (often those who share some of your Spontaneous qualities) and Critics (often those who are more Structured in nature) might interpret your personality.*
| FANS | CRITICS |
|---|---|
| Entertaining | Insecure |
| Fun | Messy |
| Crafty | Dishonest |
| Chill | Lazy |
| Unhurried | Undisciplined |
| Extemporaneous | Impulsive |
* Personality is complicated stuff and there are no hard and fast rules with these things. Some who share your traits will get along well with you while others may chafe at those similarities, and still others with different traits may admire you for possessing qualities they lack. This is why knowing the makeup of your own personality is so important: you can use discernment to better understand relationship dynamics with others. No more surprises or missed opportunities!
How Others See You
When it comes to others, your top personality trait is, of course, just one part of the equation. Where others rank on that same trait will go a long way in determining how you engage with each other – at work, at home, and everywhere in between.
A more Structured personality, for example, may find your impulsive nature to be a source of frustration. Or, that same individual may be marvel (and even secretly admire) the carefree way you flout rules that others find repressive.
With that said, here are just some of the ways your Fans (often those who share some of your Spontaneous qualities) and Critics (often those who are more Structured in nature) might interpret your personality.*
| FANS | CRITICS |
|---|---|
| Entertaining | Insecure |
| Fun | Messy |
| Crafty | Dishonest |
| Chill | Lazy |
| Unhurried | Undisciplined |
| Extemporaneous | Impulsive |
* Personality is complicated stuff and there are no hard and fast rules with these things. Some who share your traits will get along well with you while others may chafe at those similarities, and still others with different traits may admire you for possessing qualities they lack. This is why knowing the makeup of your own personality is so important: you can use discernment to better understand relationship dynamics with others. No more surprises or missed opportunities!
The
SPONTANEOUS
Team Member
Teamwork is about coming together to get things done. Finding the balance between your personal freedom, which is likely critical to you, and being a reliable team member, will be critical for you to keep an eye on. Your desire to do what you want, when you want it is just as important as is your allergy to being tied down – to people, processes, rules, or regulations. But being an effective team member often means being someone the team can count on, being reliable and trustworthy. Your spontaneity can help add some spice to the team dynamics no doubt, just make sure you put in the extra effort to deliver what you’ve committed to so you can help realize the full potential of teamwork.
Of course, the business world is built around those same people, processes, rules, and regulations (not to mention deadlines and expectations). You may no longer have to color inside the lines as you did in elementary school, but if you don’t get your timesheet submitted or that proposal across the finish line, you could find yourself looking for a new job (and unable to pay the rent or mortgage, yet another of life’s pesky requirements).
On the plus side, Spontaneous types like you are often seen as a welcome, refreshing departure from the 9-to-5 grind so many find themselves in. Your levity during a staff meeting, playful pantomime of the boss at the company picnic, or clever joke at Friday’s happy hour are often just what the work doctor ordered for other, more low-key personalities.
But spontaneity is all about the timing (how’s that for some irony?). It’s one thing to occasionally wander into the office an hour late in the morning, quite another to blow off a project your colleagues are depending on. Which means being successfully spontaneous is as much about knowing when not to do something as it is to do it.
The
SPONTANEOUS
Team Member
Teamwork is about coming together to get things done. Finding the balance between your personal freedom, which is likely critical to you, and being a reliable team member, will be critical for you to keep an eye on. Your desire to do what you want, when you want it is just as important as is your allergy to being tied down – to people, processes, rules, or regulations. But being an effective team member often means being someone the team can count on, being reliable and trustworthy. Your spontaneity can help add some spice to the team dynamics no doubt, just make sure you put in the extra effort to deliver what you’ve committed to so you can help realize the full potential of teamwork.
Of course, the business world is built around those same people, processes, rules, and regulations (not to mention deadlines and expectations). You may no longer have to color inside the lines as you did in elementary school, but if you don’t get your timesheet submitted or that proposal across the finish line, you could find yourself looking for a new job (and unable to pay the rent or mortgage, yet another of life’s pesky requirements).
On the plus side, Spontaneous types like you are often seen as a welcome, refreshing departure from the 9-to-5 grind so many find themselves in. Your levity during a staff meeting, playful pantomime of the boss at the company picnic, or clever joke at Friday’s happy hour are often just what the work doctor ordered for other, more low-key personalities.
But spontaneity is all about the timing (how’s that for some irony?). It’s one thing to occasionally wander into the office an hour late in the morning, quite another to blow off a project your colleagues are depending on. Which means being successfully spontaneous is as much about knowing when not to do something as it is to do it.
A CASE STUDY IN TEAMWORK
Responsibly Spontaneous
A Case Study In
TEAMWORK
Responsibly Spontaneous
Zach is a free-wheeling, highly Spontaneous member of his company’s design and production team. As one of the company’s more talented graphic designers, Zach’s work often is as breathtakingly original as his hair color, which seems to change with the seasons.
Whenever someone in the company needs a truly innovative design, Zach is the one they prefer to use – if they can track him down. That’s the challenge with Zach: locking him down. While his talents are obvious, finding him – and getting him to commit – can be enormously frustrating to his colleagues. The answer to the question – where is Zach? – usually can be answered: Wherever his impulses or urgent pressures that hour or day took him.
Many of his teams have dismissed some of this behavior as part of Zach’s ‘artist mentality’ and because when he’s present, he really does add a lot of value. But it’s clear it’s also wearing thin. And this isn’t the first job where Zach eventually wore out his welcome. For a reasonably young man, Zach has worked at a surprisingly large number of companies, and many teams within those companies.
Confronted by his boss, it becomes clear that despite that zany, impulsive personality, Zach is actually plagued by deep-rooted insecurities. He’s convinced that he can’t possibly be as talented as his colleagues maintain, and that he’s eventually going to be revealed as the fraud he imagines himself to be. When such thoughts get the best of him, Zach procrastinates or makes himself unavailable, enabling him to at least temporarily escape those inner demons.
With his boss’s help, Zach is able see that his behavior is only serving to exacerbate his insecurities – the more he eludes and escapes, the more the pressures build. It’s a downward spiral that Zach knows all too well inevitably leads to termination.
Together, they agree on a plan where for 90 days Zach will maintain a fixed schedule with his team, meet his deadlines, and let the chips fall where they may. At the end of the 90 days Zach’s team members will be asked to appraise his work. If it’s found to be unsatisfactory, Zach will be asked to move on – to another team or another company – a fate that was already awaiting him. But if the team’s feedback is positive (as his boss knows it will be), Zach will at last be forced to admit his insecurities are unwarranted. Ideally, a new behavioral pattern will be formed, one that’s increasingly reliant on follow-through, structure and being reliable.
The
SPONTANEOUS
Leader
Spontaneous leaders can be hard to predict. They may see a new opportunity today that change the entire business model, or they may get tied up with an exciting project from a skunkworks program that captured their attention. Because unpredictability can be a hallmark of Spontaneous leadership styles, it’s often important to have a right-hand – someone whose methodical and linear thinking will straighten things out and help ensure the spontaneity doesn’t become directional confusion.
Most leaders lack your gift for spontaneity and the sense of personal freedom that comes with it. Whether you’re impulsively taking up parachuting or making (and later canceling) plans, you’re not one to be tied down – especially if something more fun or interesting comes along.
And if the next item on your To Do list also happens to be elevating your anxieties? Why not just leapfrog that one to something more entertaining? Just make sure you delegate what you’re not feeling like doing.
It’s this carefree or even entertaining style of yours that can be so attractive to new hires, as well as friends and mates. In fact, you’re the one who keeps life fun, unpredictable, and maybe even a bit dangerous at times.
But as with all personality traits, spontaneity has its place. Matched with more logistically-minded people, your cavalier approach to planning can be a temporary breath of fresh air, but a long-term source of frustration.
It might be useful to remind yourself that playing things by ear only works when you’re an accomplished musician – otherwise, the discordant symphony that is your organization could become a cacophony.
The
SPONTANEOUS
Leader
Spontaneous leaders can be hard to predict. They may see a new opportunity today that change the entire business model, or they may get tied up with an exciting project from a skunkworks program that captured their attention. Because unpredictability can be a hallmark of Spontaneous leadership styles, it’s often important to have a right-hand – someone whose methodical and linear thinking will straighten things out and help ensure the spontaneity doesn’t become directional confusion.
Most leaders lack your gift for spontaneity and the sense of personal freedom that comes with it. Whether you’re impulsively taking up parachuting or making (and later canceling) plans, you’re not one to be tied down – especially if something more fun or interesting comes along.
And if the next item on your To Do list also happens to be elevating your anxieties? Why not just leapfrog that one to something more entertaining? Just make sure you delegate what you’re not feeling like doing.
It’s this carefree or even entertaining style of yours that can be so attractive to new hires, as well as friends and mates. In fact, you’re the one who keeps life fun, unpredictable, and maybe even a bit dangerous at times.
But as with all personality traits, spontaneity has its place. Matched with more logistically-minded people, your cavalier approach to planning can be a temporary breath of fresh air, but a long-term source of frustration.
It might be useful to remind yourself that playing things by ear only works when you’re an accomplished musician – otherwise, the discordant symphony that is your organization could become a cacophony.
A CASE STUDY IN LEADERSHIP
Embrace What’s Best, Outsource the Rest
A Case Study In
TEAMWORK
Embrace What’s Best, Outsource the Rest
Rachel is a regional executive for a large-scale food distribution conglomerate serving an array of customers, including public school systems, colleges and universities, corporate cafeterias and, of course, restaurants.
A highly Spontaneous personality, Rachel is known for her razor-sharp intellect as well as her carefree, easy-going manner. Rarely without a smile or a sudden impulse to, say, skip lunch (or extend it by an hour), Rachel alternately dazzles and frazzles team members who depend on her for big-picture strategy as well as countless daily tactical decisions.
It’s that latter part of the equation that is such a challenge for Rachel. A self-described ‘nonlinear thinker,’ Rachel has an uncanny ability to process multiple pieces of seemingly unrelated information and stitch them into a coherent picture others miss.
For example, she recognized a food buying pattern that resulted in the launch of a highly lucrative new mobile food kiosk service. Alternatively, she routinely overlooks important emails, calendar events, and other day-to-day activities.
Not surprisingly, her company wants to promote her to a national post in order to maximize her big-picture capabilities. But there is also concern that the equally nonlinear way she processes the corporate world’s daily minutiae could create more problems than such a move is worth.
The answer came from Rachel herself when she once again connected dots no one else saw. During a company happy hour, the pop culture sensation of the 1980s, Top Gun, was playing on a bar television. Rachel recognized that the Radio Intercept Officer seated in the F-14’s backseat was precisely what she needed – someone who could manage the countless incoming needs, while a ‘Maverick’ thinker like Rachel managed big picture things from the front.