5 Personality Tests Like Myers-Briggs and When Coaches Should Use Them

Personality tests like Myers Briggs are often the first tool a coach reaches for. Yet the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) leaves out something you need in almost every session: how a client copes under pressure. Better options exist, from tests that score traits on a scale to ones that map motivation, describe behavior at work or look at emotional intelligence.

Below, you will see why coaches look beyond the MBTI and what each alternative measures. A side-by-side guide then helps you match a test to the client in front of you. If you already know the options, go straight to How to Choose the Right Test for a Client.

TL;DR

How We Chose These Tests

Each test on this list is one a coach can use with clients instead of, or next to, the Myers-Briggs, and each one measures something different.

Why Coaches Look Beyond the Myers-Briggs

The Myers-Briggs places people into one of 16 four-letter types built from four pairs of preferences: extraversion or introversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. That makes it easy to talk about, which is why it is so popular in workshops. The trouble starts when you need more than a label.

Wharton psychologist Adam Grant argued that the MBTI misses emotional stability versus reactivity, the tendency to stay calm under stress or pressure. He calls it one of the most important predictors of how people think, feel and act. Without it, you see how a client prefers to work but not how they hold up when a deadline or a hard conversation arrives.

Consistency is the second problem. Grant cites the writer Roman Krznaric, who notes that if you retake the test after a five-week gap, there is around a 50% chance you fall into a different type. Grant also points out that most people sit near the middle of introversion and extraversion, so a single letter hides where they fall on that scale.

None of this makes the MBTI useless. It still gives a team a shared language. But when you need a read on stress, motivation or behavior at work, the alternatives below are built for that job.

Reaction to a tight deadline

Not scored at all

Whether the result holds next month

It can flip on a retest

How strongly someone leans one way

Only one side or the other

Common words for group workshops

Yes, easy to discuss

Alternative Personality Tests Like Myers-Briggs

Each test below looks at personality from a different angle, so pick the one that answers your client’s question. Here are five that coaches can use instead of, or alongside, the MBTI.

1. The Big Five Personality Test

The Big Five is the alternative Grant points to. Its five traits show up across many of the world’s cultures, and they help predict job performance and team effectiveness. The model grew out of work by psychologists including Raymond Cattell, Donald Fiske, Warren Norman and Lewis Goldberg, and Paul Costa and Robert McCrae later built it into the NEO personality inventories.

Unlike the MBTI, the Big Five scores each trait on a scale instead of putting a person on one side of a line. Your client gets a reading for how strongly each trait shows up, not a single label. The test itself is a series of statements, and the client rates how much they agree or disagree with each one.

It measures five traits:

• Openness: Creativity and willingness to try new things.
• Conscientiousness: Organization and dependability.
• Extraversion: Sociability and assertiveness.
• Agreeableness: Compassion and cooperativeness.
• Neuroticism: Emotional stability and the tendency toward negative emotions.

After the test, your client receives a report that sums up their scores across the five traits. The report often includes:

• Graphs that show where they sit on each trait’s range.
• Explanations of how each score affects their behavior and preferences.
• Practical suggestions for using their traits in different areas of life, such as career planning, relationships and personal growth.

The Big Five and the MBTI answer different questions, so it helps to know where the Big Five and MBTI differ before you choose one or use both. Once a client has their report, you can turn the traits they want to work on into goals and plan the sessions with one of these coaching program templates.

2. The Enneagram

The Enneagram sorts people into nine personality types, each built around a basic motivation, fear and desire. The Enneagram Institute names the nine types as follows:

1. The Reformer
2. The Helper
3. The Achiever
4. The Individualist
5. The Investigator
6. The Loyalist
7. The Enthusiast
8. The Challenger
9. The Peacemaker

The Enneagram also groups the nine types into three centers, each with its own core emotion:

• Instinctive: This center is about survival, self-preservation and physical needs, and its core emotion is anger. (Types 8, 9 and 1)
• Feeling: This center is concerned with emotions, relationships and how people relate to others, and its core emotion is shame. (Types 2, 3 and 4)
• Thinking: This center focuses on thoughts, ideas and the outside world, and its core emotion is fear. (Types 5, 6 and 7)

Here is a short description of each type:

• The reformer: These people are perfectionists who have high expectations for themselves and others.
• The helper: These people get joy from helping others.
• The achiever: These people are motivated by a desire for success and recognition.
• Individualists: They value individuality and authenticity.
• The investigator: These people are driven by a desire to learn and understand.
• Loyalists: They value security and belonging.
• The enthusiast: These people crave excitement and new experiences.
• The challenger: These are natural leaders who value autonomy and control.
• The peacemaker: These people put peace ahead of confrontation.

Because the Enneagram looks at motivation and the MBTI at preferences, the differences between Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram are worth knowing before you choose one. Online versions vary a lot, so check which Enneagram tests to recommend before you send a client a link.

3. The DISC Assessment

The DISC assessment is a behavioral self-assessment that sorts people into four main styles. William Moulton Marston first proposed the model in his 1928 book Emotions of Normal People, according to the publisher of DiSC. Where personality tests like Myers-Briggs sort people by preference, DISC looks at behavior: how a person acts, communicates and works with others.

The four styles of the DISC assessment are:

1. Dominance: People high in Dominance tend to be direct, goal-oriented and forceful. Others usually see them as decisive and confident.
2. Influence: People with an Influence style are outgoing, energetic and people-oriented. They are good at building relationships and persuading others.
3. Steadiness: People with a Steadiness style are often cooperative, patient and reliable. They value calm and stability.
4. Conscientiousness: People with a Conscientiousness style are analytical, detail-oriented and careful. They value accuracy and precision.

Everyone has a mix of these styles, although one or two usually stand out.

At work, DISC helps a team see each other’s styles and adjust how they communicate. A direct manager with a Dominance style, for example, may need to slow down and give more detail when working with a colleague who prefers a careful approach.

A DISC assessment is a questionnaire that measures a person’s preference for each of the four styles. The results are shown as a graphic, often a circle or quadrant, so the relative strength of each style is easy to see. A full DISC report shows:

• The person’s behavioral tendencies.
• Their strengths and weaknesses.
• Areas where they can develop.

Teams use it to see where styles fit together or clash, and to agree on better ways of working. When a client already knows their MBTI type, it helps to explain how the DISC assessment and Myers-Briggs differ, and a guide to reading DISC test results makes the debrief quicker.

4. The Four-Color Personalities

Four-color personality models divide people into four groups, each linked to a color:

1. Orange
2. Gold
3. Green
4. Blue

Each color stands for a distinct set of traits, communication habits and behavior patterns:

• Orange (Energetic): Orange personalities are usually outgoing, enthusiastic and action-oriented.
• Gold (Structured): Gold personalities are known for their reliability, organization and dedication.
• Green (Analytical): Green personalities are usually analytical, logical and independent.
• Blue (Empathetic): Blue personalities are empathetic, compassionate and relationship-oriented.

Because the colors are easy to remember, the model works best as a quick, shared language in a group session rather than as a detailed profile of one client.

5. Goleman’s EQ Test

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotions in positive ways. Psychologist Daniel Goleman popularized the idea and organized it into four areas:

1. Self-awareness: Understanding your own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values and goals.
2. Self-management: The ability to control your emotions and impulses, adapt to change and manage stress.
3. Social awareness: The ability to understand the emotions, perspectives and needs of others.
4. Relationship management: The ability to build strong relationships, inspire and influence others, and work in teams.

To measure these skills, Goleman and Richard Boyatzis developed the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI), a 360-degree assessment in which other people rate the client as well as the client rating themselves. Korn Ferry offers the ESCI with a certification course for coaches.

Understanding emotional drivers matters for success at work and in life. Here are a few of the benefits:

• People can communicate more clearly.
• Emotional intelligence can help people build stronger connections.
• Emotional intelligence also helps people resolve disputes.
• Emotional intelligence can increase job satisfaction.
• EQ is also vital in leadership development programs, since it allows people to inspire and encourage others.

Clients who work on these four areas can raise their emotional intelligence, which shows up in better relationships at work and at home. If you are planning your own training and want EQ to be part of it, check how much of it each of these business coach certifications covers before you enroll.

Outward behavior

DISC and colors

Stable traits

Big Five scales

Emotional skills

Goleman’s model

Core motives

The Enneagram

How to Choose the Right Test for a Client

Start from the question your client brings, not from the test you know best. The table matches each test to the kind of coaching conversation it supports.

A few habits make any test more useful. Share the results as a starting point for conversation, not a label, and ask the client where the description fits and where it does not. Use one main test per engagement so the language stays the same from session to session, and add a second only when it answers a different question.

Sometimes the client’s question is about what they do best rather than who they are. In that case, a strengths tool such as the CliftonStrengths assessment is the better fit, because it names a client’s top talents instead of describing a type.

Conclusion

The MBTI is easy to start with, but it says nothing about how clients handle stress, and its results can change on a retest. The Big Five, the Enneagram, DISC, the four-color model and Goleman’s EQ model each fill part of that gap.

So pick the test that answers your client’s question, use the results to open a conversation rather than close one, and keep the same language across the engagement. That is how a personality report turns into progress your client can see.

Key Takeaways

• Know the MBTI’s gaps. Its either-or letters skip emotional stability and can shift between attempts.
• Big Five for evidence. Scores on a scale show how strongly each trait appears, which a four-letter type cannot.
• Enneagram for motivation. Its types help clients talk about what drives them and what they fear.
• DISC for teams. Colleagues can pick up the four styles quickly and use them to adjust how they work together.
• Colors for groups. The four-color model is a light, memorable vocabulary, not a full profile.
• EQ for leaders. Goleman’s four areas give leadership clients concrete skills to work on.
• Results start conversations. Ask where a description fits before you plan goals around it.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is there a better personality test than Myers-Briggs?

It depends on what you need. For trait scores backed by research, the Big Five is the stronger choice, since its traits show up across cultures and help predict job performance. For motivation, use the Enneagram, and for behavior at work, DISC. The MBTI still works as a simple shared language.

What are the top 3 personality tests?

There is no official ranking. For coaching, three useful ones to know are the Big Five, DISC and the Enneagram, because between them they cover traits, behavior at work and motivation, the areas where the Myers-Briggs gives you the least to work with.

Is the Big Five more accurate than the MBTI?

Adam Grant makes that case: the Big Five traits appear across many cultures and help predict job performance and team effectiveness, while MBTI results can change when people retake the test. The MBTI is still easier for many clients to talk about.

Which personality test works best for teams?

DISC is a common choice for teams because its four styles are easy to learn and focus on how people communicate and work together. The four-color model does a similar job in a simpler form. Use the Big Five when a team program needs trait scores.

Can I use more than one personality test with a client?

Yes, as long as each one answers a different question. The Big Five or DISC can describe how a client behaves, while the Enneagram explores why. Keep one main test per engagement so the language stays consistent, and add a second only when it adds something new.

Are free online personality tests good enough for coaching?

They can start a conversation, but versions of the same model differ in length and quality. Check who publishes the test, use the full version where you can, and treat the result as a prompt for discussion with your client rather than a final verdict.

What does the MBTI leave out?

The main gap is emotional stability, the tendency to stay calm under stress, which Adam Grant calls one of the most important predictors of how people think, feel and act. The MBTI also reports each preference as either-or rather than as a score on a scale.