The other thing to say is that advice about style intended to improve it should not, clearly, be interpreted as advice about personality and its defects.

Over the years, I've met a few people, in real life,
where some characteristics of their personality map directly, one to one,
to some aspects of their Go moves.
I wonder if others have also had this experience.

Oh god yes, and not always in a good way

When you play you make many decisions. Essentially each move is a decision. And the decisions we make, even when they sound quite rational to us, have a deep root in how we feel, how we react to situations. Doesn't matter if it's go, getting a new job, dealing with a personal crisis, building a house.

I think there's a difference between adapting your style to a position and playing the board. People like O Meien, Takemiya Masaki, Go Seigen and Kato Masao would all I suspect approach the middle of the same game very differently strategically because they have such a variation in the way they play. However, fights kick off, weak groups appear (or whatever), and you are always then more or less forced to read and play what the board allows you to do.

I was reading an interesting bit of text from O Meien the other day talking about "Finite go" (where the outcomes are tangible and assessable by reading) and "Infinite go" (where the outcomes are too varied to get a simplistic output from reading, and instinct and feel take a bigger priority - I've paraphrased his definitions of these, but that's the best I could do).

My suspicion is that in areas of the game where finite go dominates, playing the board takes priority, and in areas of the game where infinite go dominates, people's style determine the flow and direction of the game (until, again, the reading specifics comes back - I suspect a typical high level pro-game is constantly see-sawing between the two)

EDIT: I've just realised how almost off-topic the post sounds, so I'll add "the point": I wonder if comments like the one in the OP are given to students who locally basically messed up and produced a clearly sub-optimal result. I assert that this isn't a matter of style, it's a matter of reading. Their style of play may be just fine, but if the board says "you have to play this way", that takes precedence.

This came up when I wondering about a comment such as "you need to adapt your style to the position, rather than the position to your style". This says a few things.

I think the source of most problems is in the word "style". Too many amateurs appear to think it's a desirable accessory like an Armani suit. It's more fruitful probably to talk about "attitude" (taido) as Japanese pros do. Pros can have a style but amateurs have to learn the right attitude.

The other thing to say is that advice about style intended to improve it should not, clearly, be interpreted as advice about personality and its defects. This kind of "bleeding over" is hazardous for the coach. I'm not conscious of discussions on how to give feedback on "style" that avoids the pitfalls.

Amateurs are certainly strong enough to have a sort of "posture" in relation to the game. For example, conceding a point or so in the opening to get more of the game you want could be called a posture, and I'm sure pros would feel this is the wrong attitude.

Consistency is one area that could be related to personal attitude and style and which can be taught usefully.

There is a huge amount said about these topics: the question I have is "can one formulate some concise things that are actually useful to typical amateurs?" The stuff of the colour commentator is not what a go coach needs to produce.

...

[..] I think there are just some mistakes I prefer to make right now, and they'll later be replaced by different ones.

I like that … wasn’t it Buddha who said that we never stop making mistakes — that we only can hope to make better mistakes? Or did I dream that?