How to be Responsible
You’re Savior What Now?
Last year in March, I got typed by Shan and Dave from Objective Personality as a social type #2. Responsibility—as they called it at the time—is my highest social need. It’s the main driver pushing me forward in life.
Holly got typed as a social type #3. Her social needs stack is the reverse of mine. It means that Responsibility is her last social need which makes… Irresponsibility her first need?
Wait what?
How does this make sense? I might be biased but Holly is one of the most reliable, loyal—and yes—responsible people I know.
No, Shan and Dave did not call the other side of the binary coin Irresponsibility. Instead, they called it somewhat confusingly Specialise.
It was a controversial and much-discussed choice right from the start. Were they saying that half the population is responsible by default while the other half isn’t?
Spoiler alert: no, they were not. But their terminology suggested this interpretation.
They recently revised the name and call the coin Generalise/Specialise now. We like this choice because it suggests a proper spectrum with two opposing binary ends and it hints more clearly at the meaning behind the name.
In this article, we address the issues with the original terminology, why Generalise describes the core of this social need much better, and how to approach your Demon in either case.
There Is No Savior Irresponsibility
The social need was initially called Responsibility because that’s what the social types #1 and #2 literally preach all day long: “If you want to get your life in order, you gotta be responsible!” They claimed the term for themselves.
Shan and Dave often base their terminology on the way people talk in real life because they want to make their system more accessible and intuitive that way. This is why OPS includes terms like Saviors and Demons.
In the case of Responsibility and Specialise, this approach didn’t quite work. To some people, it suggested that the #1s and #2 are responsible by default, while the #3s and #4s are not. The Specialists sounded like the ones who need to be looked after, who aren’t driven to contribute in any way. This is completely ridiculous, of course.
Being responsible is a character trait that has nothing to do with your personality type. In either case, what you want to be is an Owner.
Different Kinds of Responsibility
The four social needs are emotional drivers that compel you to play a certain role in society. It’s the role you’d naturally want to play, so you can be happy and content.
The definitions of the roles cannot contain any kind of value statement. Neither social type is good or bad, better or worse. All roles are needed and contribute in meaningful ways, they simply represent different spots on a spectrum.
The social needs Generalise and Specialise are about how you naturally prefer to be responsible. Broad and general or deep and specialised? You can be responsible or irresponsible in any case.
What makes Holly a Specialist?
People with Savior Specialise strive to find their particular passion, their individual way to contribute to society.
They naturally think in specific categories for work, which might be a literal technician but also a marketer or writer or scientist. Their job, their position, feels real to them, while it remains a means to an end for the Generalist.
Depending on their OPS type, their role can be actually narrow or rather broad, like in Holly’s case.
Her job is not clearly defined, she has a wide range of tasks and responsibilities. No one who knows her would even think about calling her irresponsible. She’s clearly responsible but not a Generalist, despite a broad job description.
Holly’s natural inclination is to focus on her position and her team which creates a siloed view. Although her Savior functions are Te and Ne which lend themselves to broad connective thinking, she tends to leave a void in seeing a system as a whole, i.e. how her team integrates into the wider organisation.
She takes her job very seriously. It’s an important part of who she is and how she defines herself. She needs to be good at her job and wants people to feel like they can rely on her.
Combined with Demon Fi, finding her identity in a passion and a purpose has been a major theme throughout Holly’s life.
On the other side of the coin, I never cared about identifying with any specific thing I did, although my lead function is Ti. I was always driven to find my unique way to have a bigger impact on people. It was not about any particular role.
As Savior Generalise, I’ve been striving for autonomy and freedom. I want to be proficient in all key areas of life: health, wealth, relationships, you name it—while I don’t care about excelling in most of them.
I want to be as much in control of my life as possible and I probably have a higher tolerance for risk because of it.
While that drive has always been there, I didn’t understand it until recently. I studied mathematics for five years and worked as a researcher for five years more because I hoped to have a positive impact on society’s future through scientific discoveries.
I ended up feeling unmotivated, frustrated and drained because I let myself get boxed into a narrow role. I knew I was unhappy but I didn’t understand why—now I do.
While I was a decent researcher, I never excelled as much in my craft as many of my colleagues. I didn’t care enough. I wasn’t dedicated enough.
I was intuitively drawn to any kind of information or tool that would give me more autonomy:
How to be physically and mentally healthier
How to set my finances in order and start investing
How to use writing and media to have a broader impact
How to become more confident and find the relationship I wanted
Since I’m Blast last, producing and sharing organised information is the hardest thing in the world for me. Yet, I still love teaching and sharing what I know. This was the work that sustained me throughout my years at the university.
No other kind of work has ever made me feel as fulfilled. I know it’s my way forward.
How to Be an Owner
Being responsible means owning your role, however specialised or generalised it is. Owning means getting done whatever is part of your responsibilities. You’re the one who keeps working until the end.
You’ll want to embrace your social type because this is what will make you the most happy and content in the long run.
But what the hell does it mean to embrace your social type? For a start, it does not mean you should or shouldn’t do anything specific. Being a #4 doesn’t mean you can’t be an entrepreneur and being a #1 doesn’t mean that you can’t have a great social circle.
Your social type gives you a high-level road map for where you want to go in life. It gives you clarity on your core drivers and the things that are truly important to you. It tells you how to approach whatever you want to do: prioritise the social needs in the order of your social needs stack.
However, you’ll have to figure out the specifics for yourself.
Embracing your social type does not mean neglecting your Demons. While you’ll want your Saviors to play a leading role in your life, it’s the Demon’s job to support the Saviors, so they can fully shine.
If you don’t respect your Demons, you will suck at your Saviors. You will fail at playing your role well.
No one wants to follow a leader who can’t connect to people.
No one wants a manager who has no clue about the specialist’s reality.
No one wants to hire a specialist who doesn’t care about the organisation as a whole.
No one wants to be friends with someone who has no self-standards and no self-respect.
Holly regards Practical Personality as a vehicle for creating the Specialist role she desires. She wants to help others by becoming a typing operator and a coach.
Knowing her social type helped her understand and accept that she cannot solely focus on those roles for the time being. She needs to be involved in marketing, content creation, customer service, and several other parts that keep a business going.
In the long run, this experience and the perspective gained will make her a better Specialist.
I regard Practical Personality as a vehicle for creating my freedom and autonomy. I want to serve and help others, though not in any specific capacity.
While I’m introverted, my head still goes in several different directions all at once. However, to build something real that actually creates value, I need to narrow down on a plan and stick to building the skills that will bring that plan to life.
In the long run, focusing on one skill after the other and stacking them carefully will make me a better Generalist.
Embrace who you are. Lead with your Saviors. Support with your Demons. Own who you want to be.
