How to Use Personality Tests for Team Building at Work

A great team isn’t just a collection of strong individuals—it’s a balance of complementary strengths. Learning how to use personality tests for team building helps leaders move beyond gut feelings and start structuring teams for real success.

But simply taking a personality test won’t transform a team. The true impact comes from applying the insights gained. Too often, organizations run assessments, review the results in a single meeting, and then leave them behind—missing the opportunity to integrate those insights into everyday collaboration. 

That’s where Whole Brain® Thinking and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®) provide a dynamic approach. Instead of a one-and-done activity of labeling individuals, the Whole Brain® Thinking framework helps teams recognize and leverage diverse ways of thinking. It moves beyond static labels and helps leaders develop teams that can adapt, problem-solve, and collaborate more effectively in real-world scenarios.

Why Organizations Use Personality Tests for Team Building

Team leaders use group personality tests to understand team dynamics, improve communication, and reduce conflict. A personality test team building activity can reveal how team members approach their work, but the real value lies in using the insights gained to build stronger, more effective teams that function better together.

Understanding Team Strengths and Weaknesses

Companies often rely on personality tests for teams to assess strengths and gaps, helping managers structure teams to maximize productivity. A Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment, for example, might reveal that some employees thrive in highly structured roles, while others prefer flexibility and innovation.

Improving Team Communication

Personality differences often lead to miscommunication. By recognizing different communication preferences, team members can adapt their approach. A DiSC assessment, for example, helps teams recognize different communication styles—some employees prefer direct, results-driven conversations, while others need time to process information before responding.

When teams embrace these differences, they can adjust their communication styles to foster clearer discussions, reduce friction and build stronger professional relationships.

Enhancing Collaboration

Many leaders turn to team personality assessments to reduce conflict and foster a culture of collaboration. Understanding different working styles helps team members recognize that conflicts often arise from differences in thinking—not personal clashes.

By acknowledging these differences, teams can proactively adjust their workflows to accommodate diverse thinking styles. Rather than seeing differences as obstacles, they become assets—allowing teams to balance structure with creativity, data with intuition and planning with adaptability.

How to Use Personality Test Results for Team Building Success

Taking a team building test is only the first step. To create highly effective teams, organizations need to integrate the results into daily operations and team processes—how meetings are run, how roles are assigned, and how managers coach employees.

Improve Team Meetings

Meetings often favor certain personality types, leaving others unheard. Highly extroverted employees may dominate discussions, while more reserved thinkers process ideas before speaking. Without structure, meetings become inefficient, favoring quick talkers over deep thinkers.

A Myers-Briggs Type assessment might show that a team has a mix of analytical, structured, and relational thinkers. By adjusting meeting formats—adding pre-meeting reflection time for introverts, assigning rotating facilitators, and setting clear agendas—leaders can ensure that each team member’s strengths contribute to better decision-making.

Whole Brain® Thinking takes this further by structuring discussions around different thinking styles. Everyone is heard. This results in meetings that are more balanced, inclusive, and strategically effective.

Assign Roles Based on Strengths

Understanding personality traits helps managers assign employee responsibilities that match with natural working styles. A DiSC assessment might reveal that one employee thrives in a structured environment, while another prefers flexibility.

In a fast-paced working environment, a structured thinker might excel in compliance or operational roles, while a flexible, creative thinker is better suited for strategy or innovation. The HBDI® framework enhances this process by showing not only where employees fit best but also how they can use their thinking styles effectively—resulting in a more agile, resilient team.

Provide More Personalized Coaching 

Coaching is an important part of team development, but a one-size-fits-all coaching approach doesn’t work. Employees with unique personalities respond to feedback in different ways. A Big Five personality traits assessment might indicate that one employee is highly conscientious and responds well to detailed, structured feedback, while another is more relational and needs coaching framed around teamwork and impact.

Whole Brain® Thinking helps managers tailor coaching based on cognitive preferences, ensuring that employees receive guidance in a way that is both effective and motivating. This leads to more engaged employees who feel supported in their development.

Promote Healthy Conflict Resolution

Conflicts often arise when employees misinterpret each other’s working styles. A highly structured manager might clash with an experimental thinker who prefers flexibility. A DiSC assessment or 16 Personalities test can reveal these differences, but resolving conflict requires more than just awareness.

Teams using Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI® learn to recognize cognitive diversity as an asset rather than a point of contention. By adjusting workflows, setting clear expectations, and ensuring that both structured and flexible thinkers feel valued, teams turn potential conflicts into strengths.

The Limitations of Personality Tests in Workplace Teams

While business personality tests can provide useful insights, their effectiveness depends on a thoughtful application. When used without context or flexibility, they can create rigid classifications that limit growth, fail to predict real-world behavior and offer little long-term value. 

Pigeonholing People

Personality tests are meant to unlock potential, but when used carelessly, they can do the opposite—boxing employees into fixed labels that limit growth. Too often, team leaders see a label like “introvert” or “highly conscientious” and make sweeping assumptions about an employee’s capabilities. Someone pegged as an introvert may be overlooked for leadership opportunities, while an employee described as agreeable might be assumed to lack assertiveness in high-stakes decision-making.

This is where assessments for team building must go beyond static labels. The HBDI® and Whole Brain® Thinking emphasize cognitive flexibility, shifting the focus from who employees are to how they think and how they can grow. Instead of saying, "This person isn’t suited for strategic roles because they favor structure," Whole Brain® Thinking encourages leaders to ask, "How can this employee develop adaptability while leveraging their strengths?"

When teams stop treating personality assessments for team building as permanent classifications and start using them as tools for development, they unlock far greater potential in their employees.

Lack of Practical Application

Even when personality tests provide useful insights, those insights don’t always translate into workplace behavior. An employee labeled as extraverted may withdraw under pressure, while someone scoring high in conscientiousness might struggle with structure in a fast-changing environment. Dominant personality traits can shift based on team dynamics, workload, or stress, making static labels an unreliable guide for real-world decision-making.

Whole Brain® Thinking encourages flexibility and development beyond static classifications. Instead of assigning fixed traits, it identifies how people process information and solve problems across different situations. Thinking preferences remain more stable and actionable, helping leaders make informed decisions about team roles, collaboration, and coaching without relying on assumptions that may not hold up under pressure.

Lack of Connection to Operations

Personality tests can be valuable tools, but they’re not a shortcut to high-performing teams. Too often, companies treat them as a one-time team-building test, expecting immediate improvements in collaboration and communication. But without integration into day-to-day operations, leadership training, and strategic decision-making, even the most insightful assessment is just an isolated exercise.

For teams looking to create lasting change, Whole Brain® Thinking provides a continuous, adaptable framework rather than a one-off diagnostic tool. It doesn’t just describe how employees think—it guides them in expanding their cognitive agility, adapting their approach, and building stronger, more collaborative teams.

A More Effective Alternative: Whole Brain® Thinking in Team Building

Personality tests can help teams understand individual differences, but real team success comes from applying those insights to improve collaboration, decision-making, and adaptability. Without a structured approach, assessments risk becoming a one-time exercise rather than a tool for long-term growth.

Whole Brain® Thinking offers a more effective, science-backed alternative by focusing on how teams think and work together rather than assigning fixed personality labels. Instead of limiting employees to static traits, it provides a flexible framework that helps teams recognize cognitive diversity, leverage strengths, and develop a broader range of problem-solving skills.

Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI® empower you to build high-performing teams that communicate more effectively, collaborate seamlessly, and adapt to new challenges.