Today’s New York Times carries an article with the headline, “James Gorman of Morgan Stanley, Going Against Type,” followed by the lead copy:
Forgoing Wall Street flash, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive is finding safer ways for the firm to make money.
I first guessed “Go against type” as “go against typical pattern or traditional way of thinking, which usually means ‘aggressive, abrasive and revolutionary,” but the succeeding copy goes against my preconception:
“In the process, James Gorman and Morgan Stanley are becoming the face of what may be Wall Street’s future: highly profitable, to be sure, but with fewer of the grand ambitions or larger-than-life personalities that have always characterized the place. “I’m pretty invisible, and that’s just fine,” he acknowledged."
It seems “go against type” implies James Gorman is taking a steadier and life-sized approach of management as against aggressive and speculative business approaches of Morgan Stanley in the past.
However, I don’t find the phrase, “Go against type” neither in CED or OED, though I find “Go against sb./ sth (flow, the grain)” in CED.
Is “Go against type” a stand-alone idiom, or just one of variations of “Go against sth,”?
Can “go against type” be often used in such a way of simply meaning “different from the old way,” as used in the above article, without projecting any revolutionary, ambitious, and abrasive tones and a sort of bulldozing approach that come first from the word, “go against X”?