Understanding your own personality is important for making the right decisions in your career and personal life. That is why so many people have used the questionnaire created by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers to determine what their personality type is, all based on the typological theories proposed by Carl Jung.

Even though Isabel Briggs Myers couldn’t probably imagine how work will evolve to make room for fully distributed teams, online collaboration tools and workflows, group video chats and all the other things that are so popular today, the personality of remote managers has a big impact on how remote teams are functioning and delivering value.

Find your personality type and see what type of virtual manager you’d make! If you don’t know your personality type, use this chart.

What Kind of Remote Manager Would You Be Based On Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type

ISTJ (the Inspector)
Your personality: You are reliable, persistent, deeply analytical and methodical. You’re also hard-working and driven by your practical judgement.

Your remote management style: As the manager of a virtual team, you can be trusted to make things work by adopting workflows and procedures that would minimise the risk of misunderstandings or blunders. You’d regularly check how the team performs and fine-tune procedures to make sure everyone on the team is heard and given all the necessary tools to deliver outstanding work.

ISTP (the Craftsman)

Your personality: You’re a process-oriented logical thinker that loves to find out how things are made, broken, and set in motion. Although you’re rather cautious and soft-spoken, you can also be spontaneous and ready to accept any adventure might come your way.

Your remote management style: Sometimes it might be hard for your team to keep up with your proposals for online collaboration tools, but they’ll always turn to you to save the day when they can’t wrap their head around why something isn’t working the way it should. As a remote manager, you’ll focus on designing workflows, and you might get so interested in this that you’ll miss some of the things happening around you.

ISFJ (the Protector)

Your personality: You take care of everyone, being one of the most considerate and sensitive people out there. You’re also capable of setting things in motion, being pragmatic and meticulous.

Your remote management style: You’re one of the people remote workers love having as a manager, because you’re always making sure they are well-rested or comfortable with the intricacy of the tasks they need to complete. You’re probably the person asking most often “how’s everybody doing today?”, making your remote colleagues feel that they are part of the team even if they’re 5,000 miles away.

ISFP (the Composer)

Your personality: You enjoy beautifying your workspace, home, even your social media presence. You’re always ready to lend a helping hand. You are flexible and gracious.

Your remote management style: You’ll do your best to accommodate the needs of your team, even agreeing to offer full work schedule flexibility. You’re guiding your life based on your inner principles and love living in the moment, so you want to offer others the same freedom. The only thing that could ruin your peace of mind would be to manage remote workers reluctant to adapt to their peers’ working styles.

INFJ (the Counselor)

Your personality: You get energised by spending time alone, you’re very organised and insightful. You find joy in uncovering new solutions for other people’s problems and being part of a team that appreciates and praises you for being one of their most dependable members.

Your remote management style: The remote workers you’ll be managing will think they found gold: you’re a great leader. We wouldn’t even be surprised if you’d be ready to coach your teammates on achieving more in life and career. The introverts in your team will find the experience of working with you life-changing, and they’ll always compare future managers with you.

INFP (the Healer)

Your personality: You don’t need to be around others to be in a good mood, but you find great satisfaction in helping people. Many INFPs pursue a creative career to express their feelings and enrich the World at the same time. You’re a caring daydreamer, sensitive, and loyal.

Your remote management style: For you, it might be a bit difficult to get it right the first time. What we mean by that is that you’re so eager to make things better for everyone around you that you might end up taking on more work than you can handle, assigning to yourself tasks that normally should be completed by someone else on your team. You have what it takes to be an amazing remote manager, so don’t worry if at first, you’ll overprotect your staff, you’ll eventually learn to delegate.

INTJ (the Mastermind)

Your personality: You are a self-supporting strategical thinker who can’t help but fall in love with innovation. You are often thinking about the World and come up with original ideas that afterward become a compass for navigating life and work.

Your remote management style: We doubt you’ll spend too much time researching good practices for managing a remote team, you’ll probably come up with your own strategies for getting work done in the most efficient way and keeping your team engaged.

INTP (the Architect)

Your personality: As soon as people meet you they figure out you’re a creative problem solver who imaginative but precise, profoundly logical but capable of generating powerful ideas and concepts. The fact that you’re usually self-contained doesn’t hold you back in your career, it only makes people listen more carefully when you have something to say.

Your remote management style: You’ll document everything. Not only because you enjoy describing tasks as detailed as possible but also because you want to make processes accessible to everyone. Workers going remotely for the first time will find in you not only a wise manager but also a tutor for telecommuting related skills.

ESTP (the Promoter)

Your personality: You are down-to-earth and outgoing, focusing your energy on moving items from the to-do list on the completed tasks list. You can wear many hats, acquiring new skills with ease thanks to your renowned versatility. You’re also an exceptional negotiator and usually get things your way.

Your remote management style: We have no doubt you’ll spend your day switching your role from manager to whatever else your team needs to make sure things get done fast and well. You’ll help your remote team learn new skills and become more competitive, all while pushing yourself to become the best manager you could be.

ESTJ (the Supervisor)

Your personality: You’re the human representation of efficiency. You’re always the one to run the show, and that’s because you prove to be dependable and methodical in your approach to work.

Your remote management style: No wonder your personality type is called the Supervisor, as a remote manager you’d focus on fixing what works poorly to optimise workflows and processes. You’d also be a big fan of time tracking software and online project management tools. For many companies, you’d be the perfect remote manager.

ESFP (the Performer)

Your personality: You’re the life of the party, and that doesn’t just apply to social gatherings. You can’t be any other way than cheerful, affectionate, casual and passionate, without being reckless, stiff or lacking common sense. You’re also a people helper who usually shows support through material gifts.

Your remote management style: You’re going to embark on a mission: to make working remotely super fun. You’ll love testing out all the crazy ideas other companies come with for boosting employee engagement in remote teams and you’ll inevitably become a global champion of remote team-building events and virtual office parties. That doesn’t mean you won’t get work done; your team will rock deadlines and deliver outstanding work because you’ll know how to motivate them.

ESFJ (the Provider)

Your personality: Being highly productive and staying active for most of the day is important to you. You want to move mountains and completing your daily to-do list is the first step. Not only that you enjoy being around people, but you also do your best to make them appreciate you and seek your company. You’re great with people from all walks of life, thanks to your friendly and outgoing nature.

Your remote management style: You’ll do your best to adapt working conditions to what each remote assistants think will improve their performance and happiness. You might be surprised to see that some of the workers will show you less respect than they should. If that happens, it’s because they’ll consider your kindness a sign of weakness and they want to see how far they can push you until you retaliate. Make sure you keep your team members accountable and keep them focused on the team’s ultimate goal.

ENFP (the Champion)

Your personality: Thanks to your inventive, playful, and exuberant nature, people think about you every time they want to start a new project and need someone’s help. You love being inspired by your work and when that doesn’t happen you’ll invest time in hobbies and side gigs. People enjoy being around you because you’re positive and supportive.

Your remote management style: You’ll get over-excited about new endeavours and get everyone involved. You’ll rush into delegating tasks and setting things in motion. One thing you’ll have to be careful about is maintaining a balanced work schedule for your remote workers, because you might get so eager to test out ideas and theories that you’ll forget how long it actually takes to wrap up tasks and projects, and everyone’s workload might increase above manageable levels.

ENFJ (the Teacher)

Your personality: You pay attention to what people do and say, so it’s naturally easy for you to turn an argument in your favour. You’re an excellent communicator, having the politeness and conciliatory skills of a World-renowned diplomat.

Your remote management style: Your organisational skills will make it look like your team of remote workers is made up of telepaths: no misunderstandings leading to errors, no project roadblocks, no unresolved conflicts. It won’t take you long to train the remote workers to function as a live organism that delivers exceptional work.

ENTP (the Visionary)

Your personality: It’s like you were born to be an entrepreneur. Your ability to balance multiple responsibilities and acquire different skills is what makes you feel confident while taking on new challenges and trying to implement revolutionary ideas. You’re also a strategist capable of extracting energy to power your long workdays from other people’s enthusiasm for new things.

Your remote management style: As soon as you start working with a new remote team member you can tell how things are going to play out and what changes need to be made in order to fully integrate and help them perform better. Your life experience helps you read people and environments in minutes and make the best decisions for your company and team.

ENTJ (the Commander)

Your personality: If there’s somebody that can have a 10-year plan and follow it through, that must be you. You’re ambitious and consistent, highly energetic, capable of keeping your eye on the prize for a long time. You’re also an excellent strategist for making teams work better together and getting the most out of talented people.

Your remote management style: You don’t always understand why some members of your crew are asking too many questions about a new project or task. It might be because you tend to figure out things faster than others and expect them to do the same. Remember not all people are perfect remote workers and they do need a bit more guidance to deliver great work.

Even if “remote manager” isn’t on your radar for a new career, you could still become one, even if that wasn’t your initial plan.

If your small business needs to hire staff, but you don’t afford to hire local talent, you’ll probably find yourself filling the role of a remote leader. You can make it work, even it will be a bit more tricky for you than for other people. We can all adapt to what is needed from us to be successful.