Predicting Organization Development Consulting Competence from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Stage of Ego Development

Abstract

A 77-item Consulting Competence Survey was developed and tested for reliability and validity. During a six-month course designed to help members of a corporate quality staff develop organization development (OD) skills, 64 trainees were each assessed by two of their peers using this instrument. The trainees were also assessed by two trainers using a five-item trainer rating instrument. Two dependent measures-peer rating and trainer rating-were used to test hypotheses about the predictive validity of the eight Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) scales and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (SCT) of ego development. Only the intuition scale of the MBT1 and the stage of ego development were found to predict consulting competence as rated by the subjects `peers and trainers. When these two measures were entered into the same structural equation, only stage of ego development was found to remain a significant, positive predictor. The study's implications for research and for selecting and training OD consultants are discussed.