Personality typing systems are everywhere these days, especially in workplaces. From the ever-popular Myers-Briggs to Business Chemistry, DISC, and Gallup Strengths, each claims to offer a profound insight into who we are and how we work. These frameworks are treated as gospel by many organisations and used to guide hiring, team building, and personal development. But here’s the problem: much of it is bollocks, and for those who are neurodivergent, it’s even worse.

The reason? Neurodivergent masking blows a massive hole in the whole idea of fitting people neatly into personality boxes. Let’s take a closer look at why these personality systems are flawed, and how neurodivergent individuals—who frequently mask their true selves to fit in—completely upend the tidy categories they try to enforce.

Unmasking Personality Typing: A Neurodivergent Perspective

This article is part of my series of satirical comedic polemics, but, as with all good satire, there’s a grain of truth buried within. Over the years, I’ve encountered the argument around personality types countless times. It’s a concept embraced by people I deeply admire and respect, particularly the Myers-Briggs framework and its associated “lore”, such as the idea that your type is fixed and unchangeable.

My latest brush with these ideas came during the National Cyber Security Centre’s NCSC For Startups programme. Determined to understand more, I dived headfirst into the topic, ultimately producing a series of articles looking at the history of the models, how to apply them, and comparing various personality models (so far over twenty articles alone). Unfortunately, it’s been a frustrating exercise, yielding little in the way of meaningful clarity.

For those of us who are neurodivergent, where masking is an ingrained part of daily life, personality typing raises even bigger questions. Can a framework designed for static identities truly capture the fluid, adaptive ways in which we navigate the world? As I see it, John Paul Sartre said it best: “We are all impersonating a personality.”

The Oversimplification of Human Complexity

At the heart of personality typing systems like Myers-Briggs and DISC is the belief that human behaviour can be classified into distinct, easy-to-understand categories. Myers-Briggs, for instance, tells us we’re either Introverted or Extroverted, Judging or Perceiving. The Gallup StrengthsFinder claims to identify our “top strengths” to guide us in our careers. DISC breaks people down into four simple traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness.

On the surface, it sounds great—especially if you’re trying to streamline understanding in the workplace. But human personalities aren’t that simple. People change based on context, environment, and external pressures. Your work personality might be different from your home personality, and that’s not just because of professional demands—it’s because we’re complex beings. People can’t be accurately captured in four letters, a set of strengths, or a neat quadrant.

Neurodivergent Masking: The Invisible Disruptor

Enter neurodivergent individuals—people with conditions like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and more. Many neurodivergent people engage in what’s called “masking,” which involves suppressing or hiding their natural behaviours to fit in with neurotypical expectations. This can include mimicking social norms, using forced eye contact, or pushing down impulses that would otherwise be seen as “odd” or “inappropriate.”

Masking is a survival strategy, but it means that neurodivergent individuals often present a persona that doesn’t reflect who they really are. And this is where personality tests completely fall apart.

If you’ve spent most of your life masking in social or professional settings, how on earth can a questionnaire accurately capture your “true” personality? When neurodivergent people are forced to respond to personality tests, they often end up selecting the responses they think are expected, rather than what’s authentic to them. As a result, they might test as “introverted” when they’re simply exhausted from masking, or “conscientious” because they’ve developed rigid coping mechanisms to manage their condition.

In short, personality tests fail to account for the vast gap between the masked persona and the genuine self. For neurodivergent people, this means the results are often meaningless, at best, or deeply frustrating, at worst.

The Problem with Pathologising “Strengths” and “Weaknesses”

Gallup StrengthsFinder and similar frameworks often focus on identifying so-called “strengths” to maximise personal and team performance. But what counts as a “strength” or “weakness” often fails to account for neurodiversity. For example, someone with ADHD might score low in “focus” on Gallup’s test, but what the test fails to acknowledge is that ADHD brains often hyperfocus on the right task, delivering incredible results in ways that others can’t.

Meanwhile, systems like DISC pigeonhole traits like “dominance” or “steadiness” as indicators of workplace effectiveness without considering how neurodivergent people may excel in areas not captured by these simplistic models. The result? These frameworks can reinforce ableist thinking, dismissing neurodivergent behaviours as “deficiencies” instead of recognising them as different, but equally valid, ways of working.

What’s worse, these systems often suggest that “weaknesses” need to be managed or overcome, placing unnecessary pressure on individuals to conform. This is doubly damaging for neurodivergent employees, who are already masking to fit in, and are now being told they need to “fix” themselves to fit even more snugly into the company’s mould.

The Neurotypical Bias in Personality Tests

Personality tests like Myers-Briggs, DISC, and Business Chemistry are typically built on neurotypical assumptions. The questions assume that we all perceive, process, and react to stimuli in the same way—which couldn’t be further from the truth for neurodivergent people. For example, a question about how someone handles social interactions might yield an inaccurate answer if the person is on the autism spectrum and has learned to “fake” social cues. The test doesn’t account for the cognitive load involved in that process or the stress it may cause.

Neurotypical bias also shows up in the values these tests place on certain traits. Extroversion, for instance, is often prized in leadership roles, while introversion is seen as less desirable. But many neurodivergent people, who may not fit neatly into these categories, are sidelined by these outdated and simplistic measures of value.

Why These Tests Are Bollocks for Team Building

Companies love to use personality tests to build “balanced” teams, thinking they can slot people together like puzzle pieces. The idea is that by combining complementary personalities—using Myers-Briggs’ types or DISC profiles—you’ll create a super-effective, well-oiled machine of a team. But neurodivergent individuals can upend these neatly designed plans.

First, they don’t fit easily into these predefined categories. A person masking their neurodivergence might score one way on a test but perform entirely differently in real-life situations, creating misunderstandings about how they’ll actually contribute to the team. Second, their unique ways of thinking often challenge the assumptions these systems are built on. For instance, a person with ADHD might be seen as “disorganised” but can come up with highly creative solutions that others miss.

When a company leans too heavily on these tests to structure its teams, it risks missing out on the benefits of neurodiversity—like creative problem-solving, innovative thinking, and resilience. Instead of relying on oversimplified personality models, organisations should invest time in understanding individual strengths, weaknesses, and, most importantly, the context in which people thrive.

Conclusion: It’s Time to Ditch the Personality Bollocks

Personality typing systems like Myers-Briggs, DISC, Business Chemistry, and Gallup Strengths have become mainstays in corporate culture, but they often oversimplify human complexity, ignore neurodivergence, and promote a narrow, neurotypical idea of what makes a person valuable. For neurodivergent people, these tests are not just frustrating; they’re downright irrelevant.

Instead of trying to fit people into rigid personality categories, we should recognise the rich diversity of human experience—neurotypical and neurodivergent alike. It’s time to ditch the bollocks of personality typing and start building systems that account for real human complexity, acknowledging that not everyone fits neatly into a box.

After all, the human mind is far too intricate, unique, and dynamic to be reduced to a set of letters or traits.