Classification of temperament, produced two and a half thousand years ago by Hippocrates, has become the alphabet of all modern psychologists. The ability to predict a person’s possible reaction to a particular emerging situation by facial expression, gestures, and sometimes physique is very important for any manager or personnel worker. Possession of such a skill allows you to correctly distribute responsibilities in a team, entrusting work to each according to his abilities.
The merit of Hippocrates is that he singled out the main types of people's characters. There are four of them, in a pure, refined form, each of them is extremely rare, but one usually prevails, affecting the selective ability to work in relation to the occupation and determining the psychological microclimate.
The most pleasant "in all respects" members of the team are considered sanguine. At first glance, their dignity is so high that you can simply admire such people. It sometimes seems to some leaders that other types of people's characters are not needed at all, they want to gather only sanguine people in the team. They are creative, always bursting with new ideas, get along with everyone for a reason.natural sociability, benevolent, optimistic, witty, easily adapt to changes and very energetic. However, looking at the sanguine more closely, it is easy to detect its serious shortcomings. The ability to be carried away by a new idea is quite logically combined with a rapid loss of interest in it, and, consequently, a lack of desire to bring the matter to the end. Sanguine people are very good as generators of ideas and executors of the most creative areas of work.
Phlegmatic people seem to be the complete opposite of them - a sort of bumpkins, they do everything slowly and gradually. They do not like to talk at all, they rarely gesticulate and, having got used to some kind of lifestyle, they perceive any change in it as a hostile interference. Such passivity, which at first glance seems to be a bad trait, is actually a very valuable quality. The perseverance of the phlegmatic and his methodical ability to work can be very well used for painstaking work, when other types of people's characters are unlikely to fit. He can be a rare quitter, but he is able to become a true hard worker, it all depends on the leader’s ability to set the task correctly.
Melancholy people don't seem to be a very good acquisition for the team. They combine slowness with instability and irascibility, and for all their irritability, they are usually very lazy. Melancholic is easy to offend, completely unwilling. Initiatives - zero, but perekamutirovat their grumbling the whole team forhim - a couple of trifles. But one should not rush to get rid of such an employee. Melancholics are very talented and, when appreciated, are able to work miracles. These are not draft horses, but trotters, they just need to be able to manage.
Choleric people are extremely energetic and active, it is impossible to imagine them somewhere on the edge, and not in the thick of things. The ability to quickly navigate the situation and make a decision, albeit not always optimal, perseverance and the will to bring any matter to the end are combined with aggressiveness and irascibility, and self-confidence with self-confidence. The mood changes very often. Choleric people do not know how to restrain themselves, but quickly move away after a flash of anger. As a rule, subordinates of such bosses like them if they are smart, and hate them if they are not. And this, alas, happens, a choleric fool is the most terrible leader.
These are the main types of people's characters. There are no good or bad among them, in nature everything is rational. It just happens that a person is out of place, and most often he himself suffers from this in the first place.
Modern psychiatry considers types of character accentuation according to the theory of the German professor Karl Leonhard, but the basis of this classification is the a priori pathology of any person. Despite the vagueness of the boundary separating sick people from he althy people, I really want to believe that most of the people around us are still normal.
