Master the Art of Personality Assessment Using Intelligence Methods from Andrew Bustamante
According to Andrew Bustamante understanding human behavior isn’t just valuable for intelligence officers—it’s essential for business leaders, HR professionals, and anyone who wants to build stronger relationships. This guide reveals proven techniques for reading people, conducting better interviews, and building high-performance teams.
The Three Lives Everyone Lives
Public, Private, and Secret Life Explained
Every person operates on three distinct levels:
Public Life: How you present yourself to the world—at work, in social settings, or during interviews. This is your carefully curated persona.
Private Life: How you behave with close friends and family when social pressures are reduced. This represents a more authentic version of yourself.
Secret Life: Your true self when all resources are depleted and masks come off. This is who you really are when tired, stressed, or completely alone.
Understanding these three layers is crucial for accurately assessing anyone’s true personality and predicting their behavior under pressure.
The Myers-Briggs Framework: 16 Personality Types Doubled
Why Personality Typing Matters
Intelligence agencies use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to create detailed psychological profiles. But here’s the critical insight: each of the 16 personality types actually exists in two versions:
- The public personality they project to the world
- The private personality they truly embody
This means you’re really dealing with 32 potential personality presentations, not just 16.
The Resource Depletion Method
The key principle: When people are fully resourced, they can fake their personality. When depleted, their true nature emerges.
The Three Critical Human Resources
Understanding how people allocate their resources reveals their authentic personality:
1. Time
How someone manages their schedule reflects their priorities and decision-making style. Morning meetings reveal people at their most resourced and controlled.
2. Energy
Physical and mental stamina determines how long someone can maintain their public persona. End-of-day behavior shows true personality.
3. Money
Financial resources affect stress levels and decision-making. Understanding someone’s financial status helps predict their behavior under pressure.
Professional Application: Schedule important assessments or difficult conversations when someone’s resources are lower. You’ll see their authentic responses, not rehearsed answers.
The Four Temperaments: Building High-Performance Teams
Understanding the Animal Framework
Intelligence agencies categorize people into four core temperaments, each essential for team success:
Lions: The Organizers
- Strength: Planning, structure, and systems
- Behavior: Creates lists, analyzes costs, considers logistics
- Question response: “I’d research destinations, compare prices, and create a detailed itinerary”
- Team role: Project management, strategic planning
Foxes: The Creators
- Strength: Innovation, ideas, and problem-solving
- Behavior: Generates multiple options, thinks creatively
- Question response: “I’ve considered Antarctica, Africa, or Saudi Arabia—each has unique opportunities”
- Team role: Product development, creative strategy
Cheetahs: The Executors
- Strength: Speed, action, and implementation
- Behavior: Makes quick decisions, prefers doing to planning
- Question response: “I’m jumping on the next plane to Fiji”
- Team role: Sales, operations, rapid deployment
Bears: The Relationship Builders
- Strength: Connection, empathy, and team cohesion
- Behavior: Prioritizes people over tasks
- Question response: “I’ll go wherever my spouse/friends want to go”
- Team role: HR, customer relations, team culture
The High-Performance Team Formula
Critical insight: A truly high-performance team requires all four temperaments. Missing even one creates blind spots and weaknesses.
Action step: Audit your current team. Identify which temperament is missing, then recruit specifically for that gap.
Powerful Interview Questions That Reveal True Personality
The Disarming Question Strategy
People come to interviews in “public life” mode—prepared, guarded, and performing. To see their authentic self, you must disarm them with unexpected questions.
Top 5 Questions That Reveal Character
1. “How would you plan your ideal vacation?”
What it reveals:
- Lions provide detailed logistics
- Foxes offer multiple creative options
- Cheetahs want immediate action
- Bears focus on who they’d travel with
2. “Describe your closet right now—not your ideal closet”
What it reveals:
- Organization style and attention to detail
- Honesty about their current state
- Gap between aspirations and reality
- Natural versus forced organization
3. “When was the last time you were offended?”
What it reveals:
- Emotional triggers and sensitivities
- Thickness of skin for high-pressure environments
- Values and boundaries
- Self-awareness and emotional intelligence
Warning: Ask this question later in the interview after rapport is established. Early deployment may activate too much defensiveness.
4. “What would you do with unlimited resources for one day?”
What it reveals:
- True priorities and values
- Resource allocation philosophy
- Imagination versus practicality
- Selfish versus altruistic tendencies
5. “Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned”
What it reveals:
- Accountability versus blame-shifting
- Growth mindset versus fixed mindset
- Self-awareness depth
- How they handle resource depletion
The Interview Process: From Public to Private Life
Phase 1: Build Common Ground (15-20 minutes)
Start with genuine connection around shared interests. This creates rapport and begins breaking down public persona barriers.
Phase 2: Ask Disarming Questions (10-15 minutes)
Deploy unexpected questions that require authentic responses rather than rehearsed answers.
Phase 3: Deplete Resources Strategically
Conduct longer interviews or schedule them at the end of the day. Tired people reveal their true selves.
Phase 4: Observe Inconsistencies
Compare early answers (public life) with later answers (private life emerging). Inconsistencies reveal the gap between persona and personality.
Applying These Techniques in Business
For Hiring Managers
Before the interview:
- Identify which temperament your team needs
- Prepare 3-5 disarming questions
- Schedule interviews strategically (morning vs. afternoon reveals different information)
During the interview:
- Notice which questions make them uncomfortable
- Observe body language shifts when resources deplete
- Pay attention to response time and authenticity
After the interview:
- Compare candidates against the four temperaments
- Assess public vs. private personality gaps
- Consider team dynamics and missing pieces
For Team Leaders
Building balanced teams:
- Assess each team member’s temperament
- Identify gaps in your four-block framework
- Recruit or promote to fill missing temperaments
- Assign projects that leverage natural strengths
Managing different temperaments:
- Lions: Give them organizational challenges and structure
- Foxes: Provide creative problems requiring innovation
- Cheetahs: Assign urgent tasks needing rapid execution
- Bears: Involve them in relationship-building and conflict resolution
For Personal Relationships
Understanding your partner:
- Recognize when they’re operating from depleted resources
- Don’t judge private-life behavior by public-life standards
- Learn their temperament and communicate accordingly
- Notice patterns in when authentic self emerges
Common Mistakes in Reading People
1. Judging Public Life Persona as Truth
The version someone presents professionally isn’t who they are at home. Account for this gap in your assessments.
2. Asking Only Direct Questions
“Are you organized?” gets rehearsed answers. “Describe your closet” reveals actual behavior.
3. Interviewing Only When Fully Resourced
Morning interviews with well-prepared candidates show only their best performance mode, not their baseline reality.
4. Ignoring Team Composition
Hiring another fox when you already have three won’t improve performance. Balance matters more than individual brilliance.
5. Expecting Consistency Across Contexts
People act differently at work versus home versus under stress. All three contexts reveal different personality slices.
The Science Behind Resource Depletion
Decision Fatigue and Authentic Behavior
Research supports what intelligence agencies have long known: as mental resources deplete throughout the day, people:
- Make more emotional decisions
- Exhibit less self-control
- Reveal true preferences
- Show authentic personality traits
- Drop social masks
Strategic application: Important assessments should happen when you want to see either peak performance (morning) or authentic character (evening).
Building Your Own Assessment Framework
Step 1: Create Your Dossier System
For each key person in your professional life, track:
- Estimated Myers-Briggs type
- Primary temperament (lion, fox, cheetah, or bear)
- Public vs. private personality differences
- Stress responses and triggers
- Resource depletion patterns
Step 2: Develop Signature Questions
Create 5-10 disarming questions specific to your industry that reveal:
- Work style and preferences
- Values and priorities
- Stress responses
- Team dynamics approach
- Problem-solving methods
Step 3: Test and Refine
- Use questions in low-stakes conversations first
- Note which questions yield most insight
- Adjust based on responses
- Build pattern recognition over time
Red Flags vs. Green Flags
Warning Signs in Interviews
Red flags:
- Significant inconsistency between early and late answers
- Inability to answer disarming questions authentically
- Excessive focus on what sounds good versus what’s true
- No self-awareness about weaknesses or failures
- Blaming external factors consistently
Green flags:
- Authentic responses even when unflattering
- Self-awareness about strengths and weaknesses
- Consistent personality across question types
- Thoughtful responses to unexpected questions
- Takes accountability for mistakes
Advanced Technique: The Mirroring Method
How Intelligence Officers Build Rapport
To move someone from public to private life, mirror their core personality back to them. This creates immediate connection and trust.
The process:
- Identify their temperament through disarming questions
- Adjust your communication style to match
- Demonstrate understanding of their perspective
- They perceive you as “like them”
- They invite you into deeper levels of authenticity
Example: With a bear (relationship-focused), emphasize team dynamics and personal connection. With a cheetah (action-focused), emphasize results and quick wins.
Practical Applications Across Industries
Healthcare
Understanding patient personalities helps doctors:
- Tailor communication for compliance
- Predict follow-through on treatment plans
- Build trust faster in limited time
- Handle difficult conversations effectively
Sales
Reading prospects reveals:
- Decision-making style and speed
- What motivates purchasing decisions
- How to present solutions effectively
- When to push versus when to nurture
Education
Recognizing student temperaments enables:
- Personalized learning approaches
- Better classroom management
- Identifying struggling students early
- Effective parent communication
Customer Service
Understanding customer types improves:
- Conflict resolution speed
- Satisfaction scores
- Retention rates
- Upsell opportunities
Ethical Considerations
The Power and Responsibility
These techniques are powerful. Use them responsibly:
Do:
- Build genuine relationships
- Use insights to help people succeed
- Create better team dynamics
- Improve communication effectiveness
Don’t:
- Manipulate people for purely selfish gain
- Use private information against someone
- Betray trust once it’s established
- Exploit vulnerabilities you discover
Remember: The goal is understanding, not manipulation. True mastery means using these skills to create win-win outcomes.
Measuring Your Progress
Signs You’re Improving at Reading People
- You predict reactions accurately before they happen
- People tell you “you really get me”
- Team conflicts decrease as you mediate effectively
- Your hiring success rate improves
- Relationships deepen faster than before
Continued Learning
Practice opportunities:
- Observe people in restaurants during busy versus slow times
- Watch how family members behave morning versus evening
- Test disarming questions in casual conversations
- Notice your own public/private personality gaps
The Masterful Student Mindset
The more you learn about human behavior, the more you realize how much remains to learn. True expertise comes from:
- Continuous observation
- Testing hypotheses about behavior
- Learning from mistakes
- Staying humble about limitations
- Adapting techniques to new contexts
Key Takeaways
- Everyone operates on three levels: public, private, and secret life
- Resource depletion reveals truth: depleted people can’t maintain facades
- Four temperaments matter: lions, foxes, cheetahs, and bears all serve different roles
- Disarming questions work: unexpected questions bypass rehearsed responses
- High performance requires balance: teams need all four temperaments present
- Application beats knowledge: understanding means nothing without ethical application
Understanding people isn’t about manipulation—it’s about connection, communication, and creating environments where everyone can contribute their unique strengths. Master these techniques to build better teams, conduct more effective interviews, and develop deeper relationships in every area of life.
Source: The ULTIMATE CIA Test To Reveal Your Personality Type with Andrew Bustamante