Author Florence Littauer is a Christian self-help author and public speaker. Rose Sweet is a published author.
The system in the book is based on Hippocrates’s theory of the Four Temperaments “Choleric”, “Melancholy”, “Sanguine” & “Phlegmatic” but the authors stated that individuals could be made up of several personality types rather than to just be classified into one.
The book is recommended for those who seeks for a grasp of quick characteristics reference. The book is available on the TRS library bookshelf and Amazon for our friends across the internet.
A quick short briefing on the four types of personality:
Cholerics are considered to be a leader and commander types, being dominant, strong, decisive, and occasionally arrogant.
Melancholy personality types are described by Littauer to be the mental types, with their personality displaying a strong emphasis on thinking, evaluation, and assessment.
Sanguines are a social personality type, displaying characteristics such as a predisposition to socialize and entertain.
Phlegmatics are described as having a flat-type personality, being laid back and desiring a peaceful environment above all else.
Some lesson learnt given by the authors:
Don’t try to change other people; change your own understanding of them
Each personality is motivated differently
Your childhood holds clues to your workplace personality
Every personality has distinct emotional needs – Unmet emotional needs can change the natural strength into weakness
Don’t be too quick to assess someone’s personality – give it time
People can be introverts, extraverts or a combination of both.
You can learn new behaviour, but your natural personality is your default mode
Everyone likes to control, but they do it in different ways.
Strengths carried to extreme become weakness.
Sometimes people wear a “mask” to get along or be accepted.
Each personality has its own needs:
Sanguines need you to notice and compliment them
Melancholies need you to understand and not ridicule them
Cholerics need you to appreciate all that they do for you
Phlegmatics need you to respect who they are, regardless of how much they do.
Principle of Personality Combination:
Everyone has primary and secondary personality – may be balanced or one may be more dominant than the other one.
Sanguines (S) & Melancholies (M) are opposite
Cholerics (C) & Phlegmatics (P) are opposite
CS = Work hard and make things fun
CM = = work hard and expect perfection
PS = balanced and make things fun
PM = Purposeful and balanced
Part 2 of the book (from p. 94 – 142)
The authors provide stories of each personality type to and prepare quick reference charts for each personality:
p.100 – Sanguine
p.112 – Choleric
p.126 – Melancholy
p.138 – Phlegmatic
Part 3 of the book (from p.145 throughout the end)
The authors provide several application scenarios based on following working relationship:
Ch.10 Spousal Relationships
Ch. 11 Multi Level Marketing
Ch. 12 Real Estate
Ch. 13 Food Service
Ch. 14 Health Services
Ch. 15 Retail/Office
Ch. 16 Ministry
