The document discusses different personality types categorized by four temperaments: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. It describes the strengths and weaknesses associated with each temperament. Sanguines are enthusiastic and fun but disorganized. Cholerics are driven leaders but insensitive. Melancholics are creative thinkers but moody. Phlegmatics are easygoing but lazy. The document emphasizes understanding different personality types in order to minimize conflicts and leverage each person's strengths in an organization.

1. Personalities At Work
By Heri Ryanga
Goals
 Understand ourselves
 Understand others
 Learn how to work together in harmony
Introduction
In any organization, its staff is as varied as the different jobs within it. What
are more varied are the temperaments or personalities of these staffs. There are
some who are outgoing, sociable and fun loving while there are those who may
be rather quiet, deep and uninvolved in our view.
Early scholars, Carl Jung among them, broadly categorized personalities into
two groups – extroverts and introverts. The introverts being the latter described
while the extroverts represent the former; ancient scholar Hippocrates however,
came up with a way of further categorizing people according to the various
body fluids – blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm.
He broke down the broad categories of extroverts and introverts further.
Sanguine representing blood and choleric to represent yellow bile were the
extroverts while melancholy representing black bile and phlegmatic
representing phlegm were introverts.
He surmised that everyone has a bit of the four temperaments however of the
four, two would be more dominant and of the two, one would still dominate the
other. As such, the combinations one can have are as varied as one can
imagine.
Over the years, other scholars have developed personality categorizations based
on animal traits and colours. They however are basically the same as
Hippocrates categories; they just used colours and animals to label his
divisions. Sanguine is an otter or blue, choleric is a lion or orange, melancholic
is a beaver or green while phlegmatic is a golden retriever or gold.
Let us look at each temperament and decipher its strengths and weaknesses.
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2. Our Personalities
i. Sarah Sanguine/Otter/Blue
Strengths: Life of the party, fun to be around, enthusiastic, energetic, willing
to try new things, spontaneous, always on the go, easily forgives, easily accepts
change
Weaknesses: Disorganized, often forgetful, easily distracted, melodramatic,
likes creating scenes, needs to be the centre of attention, sometimes irrational,
talks without thinking at times, has few genuine friends
Careers: marketers, sales persons, MC
ii. Clara Choleric/Lion/Orange
Strengths: Highly focused, goal oriented, driven, natural leadership qualities,
gets the job done, innovative
Weaknesses: Workaholic, calculating, over ambitious, insensitive, fault finders,
always right, ‘know it all’, hate details, bossy, little need for friends, can do
without you, impatient
Careers: CEO, project managers, workers
iii. Mellissa Melancholic/Beaver/Green
Strengths: Highly creative, genius, thinker, few but deep friends, detail
oriented
Weaknesses: Vengeful, keep grudges, idealistic, easily discouraged, mood
swings, martyr syndrome, all talk and no action, meticulous, OCD prone,
easily hurt, sensitive
Careers: musicians, artists, architect, designers
iv. Polly Phlegmatic/Golden Retriever/Gold
Strengths: easy going, dependable, diplomatic, sense of humour, friendly,
patient, shy, goes with the flow
Weaknesses: lazy, obstinate, stingy, resist change, sarcastic, never in a hurry,
procrastinate, worry wart, wet blankets
Careers: diplomats, receptionists, telephone operators
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3. Sarah Sanguine’s Thoughts
Clara is too bossy, Mellissa should stop being moody and Polly should be less
obstinate.
In general, everyone should just have fun!
Clara Choleric’s Thoughts
Sarah should be more focused and organized, Mellissa should suck it up –
everyone’s got problems and Polly should stop being so lazy!
In general, everyone should be focused like me!
Mellissa Melancholic’s Thoughts
Sarah should learn to think before she speaks, Clara should be more sensitive
and Polly should be less sarcastic.
In general, understand me and give me a break!
Polly Phlegmatic’s Thoughts
Sarah is a drama queen, Clara should just take a chill pill and Mellissa should
lighten up – life isn’t always about gloom and doom.
In general, go with the flow, don’t rock the boat!
Conclusion
Mellissa thinks up an idea, Clara makes it a reality, Sarah sells it and Polly sits
back and enjoys it.
Everyone is important and everyone has a part to play in an organization.
Therefore, it is important to know yourself because once you do; you can
improve on your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. Never use your
personality type as an excuse for inconsiderate behavior or inaction.
It is also important to understand others and why they react the way they do in
order to be able to respond in a more positive fashion.
Once you understand each other, you are able to harness each others
strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses in order to achieve the best
results possible.
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