Rationality Test

Personal Thinking Styles

Based on the rationality test I took on guidedtrack.com, It was determined I have a journalist reasoning style. This determines that I am an intuitive person, whom is able to size up a situation in an expeditious manner and stick to my decision about it, once I have come to one (Guide Track, 2019). This trait certainly makes it difficult to move me once I have come to a decision about something. This is great for the fast-paced decision-making process I held in my job for over a decade since I was well versed in the rules and regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration as well as the company set regulations. I believe that my work environment had everything to do with my ability to perfect this skill. Unfortunately, I can also see how this can create a problem in a situation where thinking about a problem and considering all decisions and outcomes before taking a step forward comes into play.

The test also determined that I am a subjective person, who is more qualitative than quantitative. I am certainly more interested in the details that form a situation than the numbers and figures that compose the situation (Guide Track, 2019). Being a subjective person makes me a great writer, but unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to crunching the numbers and knowing which quantitative formulas to use to determine whether a hypothesis is valid or invalid in a research paper for example. This is a heavy hitter in my scholarly career and a large part of the reason why I have not gone back to my masters at Embry Riddle and completed my capstone to obtain my first master’s degree and am now working on my second. Go figure, three credits left to complete my degree and I am too scared I will fail in meeting the quantitative requirements.

The rationality test also determined that I am a skeptic. I am not a person that is easily fooled or confused by new ideas and that’s I have a great nonsense detector as well as a strong belief foundation in tried and true logic (Guide Track, 2019). This is a huge influence in my behavior, as it has made me a you are guilty until proven innocent kind of person. I never take a person at their word and I am very mistrustful which has likely made for a lot of looses on a personal level with other people in general. I am pessimistic at best and always consider worst case scenario before even looking at the possible gains from opening myself up to the possibility of something good looming on the horizon. On the positive side, being a skeptic has also saved me from a lot of heartache and disappointment, so in turn. It can’t be all that bad to be a skeptic.

Impact on Management Style

Based on the test, I scored very low on all four subareas of the test, namely, quantitative reasoning, future-based reasoning, evidence evaluation score and cognitive awareness (Guide Track, 2019). This in turn makes me feel like I would be a horrible manager, but I’ll venture into the qualities of an individual with a journalist reasoning style and apply those to the management style all the same. Based on my traits, I believe I would perform the following functions as follows:

Planning- Based on my weaker traits, I appears I have a consistent tendency to underestimate time and resources required to complete a project (Guide Track, 2019). Which will likely mean, late turn in’s, failed projected goals and most importantly, underestimating costs associated with those failures and delays. It would be in my best interest to complete a plan in conjunction with someone who has experience so that I can better judge time requirements and resources required to complete a task. In turn, once I have experience with the planning phase, my intuition will be better trained to measure these requirements more accurately. Also, it will be a good idea to err on the side of caution and overestimate whatever my initial ideas on what time and resource allocation is. This will make for less stress through the process and if I finish earlier, then great, it will set a stage for future ventures in planning phases.

Organizing- Organization on the other hand should be a breeze, as a fair judge of character, I am able to reasonably asses who would be best suited to what task outside of the obvious information provided on each individual, such as placing an it specialist for example on an IT task. Organization does affect required time to complete a task, so again, best to err on the side of caution and overestimate time to complete a task and ensure that there is a clear and concise mapping of the way a management project is organized. Keeping up to date on any progress and shortcomings will help with any required re-organization to meet time constraints and so on.

Leading- Being able to see through nonsense is a great trait for leader, so this will help me keep everyone in line when it comes to being a manager. If someone is trying to give me a lax excuse as to why something is not done, I am very forward with making it known. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make me very personable, which is a favorable manager characteristic.

Controlling- In complete contrast to the traits mentioned in the journalist reasoning style, I am absolutely not carefree. I require control over situations, especially if my name is on it. I do not micromanage, as I have been in control of certain aspects of work projects in previous employment and never liked being over anyone shoulder so to speak, but I do expect results and will continuously touch base to inquire on progress and to offer assistance to ensure that progression keeps a steady pace.

Genesis of Your Thinking Styles

Based on my results, I can see family relationships, schooling and my own tendencies to overanalyze situations as key factors to my journalist reasoning style. I come from what appeared to be a very tight nit family dynamic, but in reality, we were just under the rule of the matriarch of the family my grandmother. I was raised and influenced greatly by my her. She was a very controlling, skeptical individual and I feel I learned those traits from her. When she passed away four years ago, my family fell apart, which is validation to me of how controlling she was. She was the glue that held us together. We do not mix well as individuals which has reflected in our lack of concern or even interest in being around each other and our lack of interest for the wellbeing of our extended family members. When it comes to education, I was never a fan of school but, my family was hell bent on only the best of the best when it came to grades, so I have the need to be excellent, but not the same drive. I was always an excellent student, but it was because it was required of me to obtain any sort of validation. I was always known as the intelligent one and that was all. To my family I had no other redeeming qualities. I struggled constantly with math, but since it was my only task, I pushed myself hard to ensure that I was an A student on all my subjects, where science, social studies, reading and writing took little effort on my part, it was a colossal task for me to understand math and how to apply it appropriately. Which in turn directly affects my ability to understand quantitative studies as well as I have mastered qualitative work. Measuring time requirements was also very difficult because there were no time restraints. My mother is disabled and never worked. By the time I was old enough to understand such things, neither was my grandmother. So, I had a whole bunch of people around who had all this time and nothing to do with it. Which bled into micromanaging me. Hence my disdain for micromanagement. I never had a set schedule or routine, I was always expected to be mature enough to get things done without calling attention to myself, so I learned the habit of doing things last minute as long as it was done. My continuing scholarly career has little to do with my liking of it and more to do with my expectation that education will open doors for me on the economical side and to set an example to follow for my three children.

Conclusion and Reflection

I can clearly see how the test determined that my reasoning skills where intuitive, subjective and skeptical, unfortunately, I think the test was erroneous in the determination that I am carefree. I almost wish I was carefree. I wouldn’t have such fuel to feed my never-ending insomnia. Given the results, I believe a strong goal to set for myself would be better time management skills, it will reduce my stress levels significantly and more importantly help me be more successful not only in my scholarly career but in my professional development as well.

Reference

Clearer Thinking. (2016, November 8). What's your thinking style? This logic test can identify your mental strengths and weaknesses. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from https://www.clearerthinking.org/single-post/2016/11/08/Whats-your-thinking-style-This-logic-test-can-identify-your-mental-strengths-and-weaknesses