IEE at Work: The Psychologist's Career Strengths

IEEs are usually the first to notice what a colleague could be good at, often before the colleague does. That is a real skill, and in the right job it is the whole job: coaching, recruiting, teaching, matching people to work that suits them. In the wrong job it gets used only at the margins, while the IEE is held to a routine that never calls on it.

Where IEE sits among the Humanitarians

IEE is the Delta irrational of the Humanitarian club, whose members pair Ethics with Intuition. Delta values favour useful work, personal integrity and an easy, unforced atmosphere; irrationality means the IEE follows openings as they appear rather than a sequence set in advance.

Creative Thinking (Ne) is the IEE's Enthusiastic Driver: a quick, wide sense of possibility, above all of the possibilities in people. Ethical Harmony (Fi) is their Adventurous Discoverer, the reading of personal closeness and trust, and of how two people really feel about each other. Ne notices what someone could do; Fi notices what they would want. That combination is what makes a good coach, mentor or recruiter, and the IEE has both by nature.

The Humanitarian club, through IEE's eyes

The Humanitarian club processes managing emotional atmosphere, deep insight into people's abilities, and tracking current trends in detail, and takes logical systems within production, hierarchical management and technology for making physical things only on the surface. The IEE puts the middle item first.

Insight into people's abilities is the IEE's home ground. They see potential quickly, and they see it individually: this person, this talent, this next step. Emotional atmosphere they handle through relationships. Social Interest (Fe) is their Natural Artisan, the Demonstrative position, so they can lift a room easily, but they would rather improve it one conversation at a time. Tracking current trends is the item they hold least firmly. Reality Distillation (Ni), the element of long-range development, is their Ignoring function, the Data Recorder: the IEE notices what is new far more readily than where it will lead.

On the surface list, the IEE's attention drifts unless people are involved.

How IEE works

Five work groups come from Kovalenko and Zvonaryova. The IEE in each:

Stress and switching: Flexible

Bad news rarely keeps an IEE down for long; by the next morning they are usually talking about what can be done instead. The authors put IEE in the Flexible stress group with IEI, SLE and SLI. Creative Thinking (Ne) turns a setback into a set of new options, and Ethical Harmony (Fi) tells them which people to turn to, so the pressure is converted into a plan B and a conversation. They are also clear about what restores them (a change of scene, the right company) and tend to go and get it.

What suffers is follow-through. Once the interesting part of a task is done, the routine remainder can sit at three-quarters finished for weeks. An IEE who has a colleague to finish the detail, or a structure that makes finishing unavoidable, produces far more completed work.

Implementation: Implementer

What an IEE implements is usually a method for people: a coaching model, a teaching approach, an interview process. They seldom invent it from scratch. They take something proven and fit it to the individual in front of them, which is the Implementer approach the authors describe; IEE shares the group with IEI, ESE and ESI. Fi makes the fit personal, and Ne finds the angle that will work for this person in particular. Practical Results (Te) is their Hidden Motivator, the Mobilising position: the IEE is glad of a colleague who tracks whether the method is actually producing results, and is often energised by the evidence that it is.

Planning: Free

An IEE's week is mostly open by intention. They keep many goals alive and take up whichever one circumstances favour, which is the Free planning group, shared with ILE, SEI and SLI. A fixed plan feels to an IEE like closing doors that might have led somewhere. Tactical Action (Se) is their Underlying Referee, the Role position: they can push a timetable through under pressure, and will, but it costs them, and a role built on enforcing schedules on other people is a poor match.

Decision style: Diplomat

For an IEE, a decision is right if the people affected can live with it, and they find that out by talking to each of them. In the IEE the Diplomat group's ethical judgement, bent to the situation, is Fi's reading of each relationship combined with Ne's search for an option nobody had considered. Logical territory is where they falter. Academic Knowledge (Ti) is their Rising Guru, the most vulnerable position, so a decision that must be argued from formal rules or abstract principle leaves the IEE exposed, and they may concede a point they were right about simply because they could not frame the argument.

Goal-setting: Flexible-manoeuvring

An IEE's goals are many and outward-facing: a new role, a project, a person to help, a place to see. The authors name this Flexible-manoeuvring goal-setting, the pattern of the EP temperament, and it is a separate group from the Flexible stress group above, which concerns pressure rather than aims. In the IEE the switch usually comes when a more interesting goal appears, a new opportunity or a new person pulling attention from the current one, and energy arrives unevenly. That suits roles with variety and many short engagements, and makes a long, unchanging project a poor fit unless someone else carries its later stages.

Same field, different dynamic

Feelings, insight and trends are every Humanitarian's subject. The IEE's angle is the individual, as the table shows.

EIE: Quasi-identity

Of the four Humanitarians, the EIE and the IEE are the two extraverts, both expressive and good with people, and they are often confused. The EIE leads with Social Interest (Fe), which is the IEE's Natural Artisan, and follows with Reality Distillation (Ni), the IEE's Ignoring function. The EIE moves a whole audience towards a goal, timing it carefully; the IEE works with individuals and their possibilities. Rational, in the Fragile stress group, a Finisher, a Staged planner and a Guardian, the EIE shares no work group with the IEE.

Quasi-identity has fighting external circumstances and getting through crises as its natural task, and it suits this pair. When something threatens them both, the pair divides the work naturally between the crowd and the person. When nothing does, each tends to underrate what the other is doing. See the EIE careers page.

IEI: Extinguishment

Where the IEE sees what a person could do now, the IEI, who leads with Reality Distillation (Ni), the IEE's Ignoring function, sees where that person is heading over time. Otherwise the two work alike. The two are irrational and share three work groups: the Flexible stress group, Implementer and Diplomat. Both recover quickly, both adapt known methods to the people in front of them, and both decide by keeping people on side. The IEI keeps several plans ready, where the IEE prefers to keep plans loose.

Extinguishment brings the natural task of keeping motivation and interest in each other. The IEE's enthusiasm can feel shallow to an IEI, and the IEI's reserve can feel discouraging to an IEE. Working on separate parts of a shared project, and asking about each other's side, keeps them engaged. See the IEI careers page.

EII: Mirror

The EII holds the IEE's strong elements in reverse: Ethical Harmony (Fi) leading, Creative Thinking (Ne) second. The IEE spots a possibility and then asks how people will feel about it; the EII starts from what is right between people and then looks for what could develop. Rational, in the Fragile stress group, a Finisher, a Stable planner and a Guardian, the EII shares none of the five work groups with the IEE.

The Mirror relation gives them the natural task of constructive criticism and getting out of a creative rut. The EII can show the IEE where enthusiasm has outrun integrity; the IEE can show the EII where a principled position has stopped helping the person it was meant to protect. See the EII careers page.

What drains IEE at work

Academic Knowledge (Ti) is the IEE's Rising Guru, the most vulnerable position. Formal rules, rigid procedures and arguments conducted in strict logic unsettle them, and being told their reasoning is muddled hurts more than it shows. A role in compliance, audit or detailed technical specification will wear them down.

Tactical Action (Se) is their Underlying Referee, the Role position. The IEE can stand firm, push back or enforce a decision when they must, but it is effortful, and a job that consists of applying pressure to people, chasing debts or imposing discipline drains them quickly.

The club's surface list, logical systems within production, hierarchical management and technology for making physical things, completes it. Management by hierarchy in particular asks the IEE to rely on authority instead of on relationships.

What IEE needs from colleagues

The Suggestive position holds Dynamic Stabilisation (Si): comfort, a calm pace, someone who quietly makes sure the practical side of life is in order. With that support an IEE settles and focuses; without it they scatter. The Mobilising position holds Practical Results (Te): accurate information and an efficient way of doing things, which the IEE values and likes to be shown.

The IEE's Dual, SLI, leads with both. In a team that often looks like the colleague who makes everything run smoothly while the IEE works with the people. The IEE relationships page covers the pairing.

Fields that tend to suit IEE

The Humanitarian fields are culture and the arts, acting, psychology and teaching, and advertising and public relations. The IEE's stack points most directly at psychology and teaching: any work whose core is seeing what a person could become and helping them get there, from coaching and counselling to careers advice. In public relations it means relationship-building, the contact who knows everyone and what each of them wants. In the arts it means spotting talent and bringing people together as much as making the work.

The caution is roles built on routine, enforcement or detailed rules, which draw on the IEE's Role function and Rising Guru.

That is an ability, not a job title. An IEE in engineering or finance can be the manager everyone wants to work for, because they see what each person is for. The best role is one where seeing people is the work.

The club work profile and the five work groups on this page are from R.K. Kovalenko and N.A. Zvonaryova, Sotsionika: polnyy kurs lektsiy [Socionics: A Complete Lecture Course], NITs Sotsionicheskogo Analiza / SibAK, Novosibirsk, 2020, chapter 11; the natural task of each relation is from chapter 12 of the same book. The authors base the stress and implementation groups on their own experiments. The reading of each group through IEE's Model A positions, and the examples, are my own.