C—Cautious/Conscientious Personality

by Royce White, Human Behavior Specialist

Understand personality, understand life. If you treat one type of personality the way you think you should without taking into consideration their actual personality language, you won’t have the influence to lead them well. Doesn’t matter if it’s your children, spouse, friends, coworkers, or your boss. You can talk passed people on your way to communicating. But if you speak their personality language, you will connect from the very beginning.  It saves a considerable amount of time and money. 99% of everything in life is affected by your personality. Not convinced? Let’s dig deeper.

I’m going to tell you your whole life story. If your Primary personality trait is Reserved and Task oriented—a Cautious personality type—this is who you are…

You are cautious, competent, careful and calculating, cognitive, critical thinking, compliance wanting, conscientious, correct, conformist, consistent. And because of all this you can seem cold in both appearance and approach toward others. It’s not intentional—you just want the facts! Cs are typically the true introvert. So the key to success is to be both and—be the conscientious task oriented person that you are, and also, don’t forget to learn to connect with people! That’s a learned skill—not just a natural personality.

You are the thinkers. The majority of you who went to school graduated with some kind of honors. You are perfectionists, which can slow down your progress (though increase the quality). Realize that some things might be good enough and don’t engineer everything to death.

You stay on track long after others have given up. You are not pushy and you don’t have to be the leader like the Dominants (D) and Inspiring types (I) do—which is part of your reserved nature. You have little time for fooling around and you can see things in your mind unfold step-by-step. You love to be correct and hate to be wrong. Not because you think you’re better than others, you just enjoy being right—because—well, it’s right.

You like to keep things under your control because it ensures accuracy. You’re the ones who have been correcting my grammar as you have been reading this. You know what it means to do your homework and you naturally have to prove things yourself.

All this can make you seem cold and calculated, but that’s not your intention. You’re naturally curious and concerned about most things. You ask a boatload of questions which, to the other non-C personalities, can get tiring. I’s and D’s take it personally when you question them—they think you don’t trust them and it causes problems. Of course, I’s have a tendency to not be very careful with facts and the truth—they just want to get the story out—and that makes a difficult problem for a C personality.

C’s are doctors, lawyers, pilots, songwriters. Actually, C’s can be just about the best at any career, including sales IF they learn to sell from a factual and useful perspective—not only from a relational perspective. The key is selling to other Task oriented people. You take the time (focus) to achieve the results that you want. That doesn’t mean that the other personalities are bad at these things, it just comes more naturally for C’s because they can focus and stay on target more easily. Although you don’t like to lead, you will lead and you will make good Level 5 Leaders—the pinnacle of leadership—IF—you remember it’s about people first.

One of your main difficulties being reserved is that it’s difficult to be in front of a group of people. So you need to raise your I and D personality (outgoing traits) by learning to connect properly and to raise your people skills well. Doing the homework reduces your fears.

The weaknesses of a C personality can be hard to accept because most people don’t like to confess their limitations. So be honest and candid as you read this. Ask your spouse if they agree with this list. Also, this list isn’t exhaustive and some of the things may not apply to you. Fine. But be honest—which is who you usually are—except when your weaknesses are pointed out… but that’s hard for everybody.

When not in control of yourself, or when your strengths are over the top, you can be pessimistic, moody, critical, negative, unforgiving, prideful, vengeful, a perfectionist, self-centered, have a low self-image, fearful of being wrong, easily offended, stingy, and unfriendly. Not that others aren’t this way as well, you just have a proclivity for these negative traits. Other personalities have other propensities.

So now be candid—doesn’t the positive and negative traits listed here describe how you can be from time to time? Statistics and studies show that at least 85% of the time, this is who you are if you are indeed a Task oriented and Reserved personality—a Cautious personality type. There may be some differences, mostly because of your Secondary and other traits. But in general, this is who you are—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Do you understand the other personality types? Do you understand your own personality? Are you prepared to lead others or work with them if you don’t know what motivates their personality type? Or how they think? Especially if it’s not the same as your type? 90% of conflicts arise because of difference in personality. Doesn’t it make sense to be your best at understanding and speaking others personality language?

25-30% of the population is a C personality. That means that 70-75% of the population is not like you.

Want to learn to speak other personalities language? Especially those who are opposite of you and who you know the least about? Contact us today to talk about bringing in our team to help your team. We love to talk personality.