Blonde MBADocumenting the life of a blonde MBA student in sunny California. Maybe some blondes DO have brains!

When school started, I mentioned having taken about a zillion personality tests, trying to answer the questions “who am I?”, “what’s important to me?”, “what career best fits me?.” Well, this week I got a little more insight into why these personality tests have some importance beyond just pinpointing the strengths & weaknesses that most of us already know we have (whether we use them to our advantage or not) and providing a start for effective leadership in our lives & organizations…

Simply put? Knowing who we are and what’s important to us allows us to (1) manage ourselves & the direction we’re heading, and (2) communicate & best manage others who will most likely have different personalities, goals, and values from us.

First, it starts with self-awareness of ourselves. Knowing what values we hold most dear can guide every aspect of our lives, from picking a job of importance to picking friends & partners who have similar values. Knowing ourself also has everything to do with how we behave, so by taking time to process information through our self-awareness, we can effectively RESPOND to situations in our lives rather than simply REACT to them — a key characteristic of both good communicators & hence, good leaders.

I guess I’ve always thought of personality tests strictly in terms of MYSELF, but the second part of this is recognizing what’s important to others so we can best manage & relate to them, being empathetic to what values they hold dear so we can respond appropriately. This heightens our (*buzzword alert*) EQ, a.k.a. Emotional Intelligence, being able to perceive & monitor the emotions of ourselves & others, thus lending to the respect needed of a true leader.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I probably didn’t say ‘Blonde MBA’ at the age of 5, but now that I actually AM a Blonde MBA, I have to start planning my career strategy for what I want DO with my MBA when I graduate in 16 short months…

My school’s Career Management Center is an integral part of the life of a full-time MBA. At orientation, they said that that 90% of MBA students say they know what they want to do when they enter the program, and 90% of MBA students are lying. Most of us really don’t know what we plan to do with our MBA degree (or will change our mind in the course of the program :)).

As if it wasn’t enough that I  made the decision to get my MBA, I have now taken 4 personality tests within 1 week of school starting to determine: my strengths, what type of thinker I am, how I best learn, and now, what career paths best suit me. Half of them are right, half of them not…I mean, I’m getting  my MBA to be a bus driver? Are you kidding me?

Obviously kidding…I can’t drive… but hopefully this career assessment (and meetings with the Career Management Center) will give me good insight on the various career paths that I might enjoy and help me come up with a good strategy for getting the job I want upon graduation!