"ISTJ" Themes and Relationships

How to use this Personality Type Description

ISTJ Theme

For Planner Inspectors, life is a process of drawing up plans and being prepared. Having things planned out gives them a measure of comfort and safety. Then they can be sure everything will be taken care of. They like to be orderly, systematic, and organized to be sure they don’t overlook anything that should be done and to control for things that might go wrong.

They take responsibility for making sure the details of a task are completed to the agreed upon standards and on time. To not follow through on a commitment is nearly incomprehensible to them, and they go to great lengths to make sure whatever needs to be done will be accomplished. Their attitude is that you have to get your work done before you can really enjoy playing. Yet they do like to laugh and joke, even on the job—a side of them sometimes missed by others.

Being active in the community gives them another place besides work and home to be responsible and to contribute to the social structure that keeps society going. Take away their family, work, and community roles and you take away their sources of energy. They enjoy cultivating good qualities in themselves and in others.

They have a lot of loyalty to their roles and take them very seriously, sometimes putting up with conditions most people would avoid or escape. For them, showing they care by supporting one’s family, being a good parent, a good worker, or even a good child is most important. One characteristic they are always respected for is doing the right thing. Somehow they manage to bear life’s burdens and overcome adversity.

Their thought processes tend to be sequential and structured. First they line up the sequence of what is happening to see exactly what the problem is. They have a keen sense of past experiences to reference for constructing solutions, which they mentally test out for what is likely to happen and any negative effects. They are particularly talented at seeing the pieces of a project, what’s missing, and how they go together.

When they reach the end of a task, they look back and often have a sense of “If only I had known then what I know now!” Learning so much in hindsight can be painful at times. They put the knowledge learned in their memory bank so they can apply it in future situations.

ISTJ Relationships

For Planner Inspectors, relationships are about caring and responsibility. They enjoy giving of their time and experience and want to set a good example. They feel very responsible for those in their care. With a strong sense of honor, they feel it is their duty to keep the family unit, the work group, or the organization together and make sure everything is okay. They will work very hard as providers. The downside is that they can become so focused on their responsibilities to work that they neglect their responsibilities to be more personally involved. They are intensely loyal in all their relationships. Having stable relationships is important, and if educating the other person hasn’t worked, they may overlook that person’s irresponsibility in order to maintain stability. However, they can eventually get angry when others don’t follow through and aren’t pulling their weight.

In their close relationships, they are loyal and faithful. Traditional roles suit them well. They tend to hold in emotions and be less expressive. They can be very sentimental at times, especially over reminders of the past. Thoughtfulness and steadiness are the hallmarks of their relationships. They are more likely to give practical gifts than romantic ones. They need to make sure they get enough solitude, especially at the end of the day to review all that has happened and plan for the next day.

This concludes "Themes and Relationships for ISTJ,"
A Personality Type Description.

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**The Personality Type Description shown above is wholly owned and copyrighted by the authors Linda V. Berens Ph.D. and Dario Nardi Ph.D. and is used herein with their permission.

For a complete set of Personality Type Descriptions by Linda V. Berens and Dario Nardi please see: "The 16 Sixteen Personality Types - Descriptions for Self-Discovery"

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