Personality Types: Profitable Leadership & Team Secrets | #peopleskills
by Kate Nasser | 9 Comments »
Personality Types: Tapping the Profitable Secrets
Behind the labels of personality types lie the secrets to more profitable leadership and teamwork.
Workplace leaders often assess team member personality types — amiable, expressive, analytic, driver. If leaders stop there, these results become inactive labels of little value. As I work with leaders and their teams, I highlight the profitable secrets of personality types.
The Profitable Leadership & Team Secrets of Personality Types
Secrets of Personality Types
Personality types impact employee engagement and commitment, understanding and outcomes. In times of great change, personality types can block or feed success.
Personality Types & Employee Engagement
- Amiable personality types come alive through personal connection. If you want to tap the profit they can bring to the business, bond with them personally. You do not have to be their best friends yet if you skip the bonding you skip the profit. A just the facts approach makes them feel lonely and demoralized. In today’s world of virtual teams, remember to connect with amiable types face to face or video conference for a winning solution!
- Expressive personality types shine in and through communication. Two-way communication, a critical skill of any good leader, brings these people to full contribution. If you are fast paced and minimize communication, these expressive types feel shunned. You are leaving the profit they bring by the wayside.
- Analytic personality types work with ordered thought. They have much to contribute if you allow for some ordered discussion. If you are brainstorming, take a small pause to capture the analytic’s ideas. If you are a very creative leader, summarize your thoughts in an ordered manner after your creativity. If you skip the order, you leave analytic types frustrated and the value they can provide, untapped.
- Driver personality types crave end results and achievement. Give them the big picture, highlight critical milestones and risks, and then let them deliver the results. If you micro-manage them or demand they focus on every tiny detail, they feel trapped and annoyed. Although many people dislike micro-management, driver types resent it. You are keeping them from the brass ring! They may look for a new job that gives them a less obstructed run toward success.
If you are leading change and you are …
- Driver personality type intent on pushing through massive change, you will overwhelm other personality types. Don’t issue announcements. Hold all hands meetings. Don’t tell them to stop complaining. Find their concerns and have them develop solutions with you. If you want the employees to implement the change, engage who they are. Else you will not tap the profit of personality types. The change will die a slow death.
- Amiable personality type, you can get caught up in feelings and bonding instead of leading through the tough moments. Don’t get stuck. Use your incredible bonding skills to rally support for the change. Engage everyone’s talent to make it happen.
- Analytic personality type, you may demand too much information before making decisions. The change effort can falter. Trust the other personality types on the team and profit from their ability to move change along faster with a little less data.
- Expressive personality type, you can shine in organizational change because you love to communicate. Yet, you must remember to engage in two-way communication. Don’t deafen them with your constant talk. Profit from the analytic, amiable, and driver type ideas by remembering to let them communicate too!
Great leaders ignite the talents of the team members they have. To engage and lead employees, adapt to their personality types and reap the profits.
If instead you revel in the comfort of your own personality type, you will leave the profit for the next adaptable leader.
From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Related post:
GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type
The 12 Most Absurd Debates Between Introverts & Extroverts
People Skills Insight Revealed for Introverts & Extroverts
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Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.
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Kate,
Wonderful Article and its my pleasure to be the first to reply 🙂
I see myself somewhere in between the Analytic type & the amiable type 🙂
Your model resemble Dr. Belbin’s Model:
http://changingminds.org/explanations/preferences/belbin.htm
I was found to be a finisher and a plant 🙂
Thanks Kate for your effort
Regards,
Khalid
The instrument would give you two descriptors Khalid — your dominant trait and your secondary trait. Perhaps you are an Analytic Amiable. From the time we have interacted on Twitter, I picked up amiable right away. Enjoy & thx for the link.
Kate
I am going to have to re-read this one a few times, I see a couple of definitions that could match me, at the moment I feel like an Ambiable/ Driver persona.
Great article as usual my friend.
I think you are right Kimb. So glad you liked the post. Interesting that you figured out that the instrument would give you two descriptors — your dominant trait and your secondary trait.
Enjoy and share the info with others!
Kate
Hi Kate, I have a love-hate relationship with personality assessments or any assessments for that matter, which are normative, ie,put people in a category. The way you suggest utilizing the intelligence provided here is the part I love. I also love them for self understanding. But if we are awake just knowing and understanding the differences in how people operate best can signal when we need to adapt our own behavior. We can use the categories to show us what we might try. The part I dont like is when these are introduced to a group because they can turn into labels used to shortcut observation and unwittingly have people put each other in overly simplistic boxes which can be very limiting and once assigned are difficult to escape.
Hi Susan. Like you, I feel that assessments are only as good as the reliability and validity studies conducted – but nothing is fail proof. While I firmly believe type should be accessible to everyone, I find that in the journey to understand type, people have a truly transformational experience which is mostly personal, even if provided in a group setting.
Descriptors usually help once people go through a ‘discovery’ process around type and what it means. I use experiences, activities, discussions, and other opportunities in training classes to help people understand their core natures and uncover the polarities about type in that way so it resonates deep within and stays embedded. When trainers introduce type based on a model in whole without building up to it, it becomes a concept and deeply embedded knowledge that alters how people approach others is my personal goal. I usually provide assessment results and descriptors long after we’ve done many discovery activities as a means to building onto the picture people have of themselves first so the profiles ‘fit’ better and with less guessing.
Hey Kate,
I’m late responding to this. But I just have one thing to say. Get to KNOW people. The information and strategies you gave are really good. But whether someone uses that or not, you need have getting to know people as value in your organization. This is why general managers of professional sports franchises spend months evaluating every aspect of potential draft picks. They have been known to walk the streets of neighborhoods where people grew up to ask people in the community. Winning and a ton of money is on the line. (OK, so I had a couple of things to say.)
Joshua
Joshua,
Your simple statement “Get to KNOW people” has power far beyond its simplicity.
Leaders and managers that get to know people:
Give, get, and breed respect as a culture
Understand the subtleties of leading well
Produce winning teams through deep knowledge
Can resolve conflicts more easily and effectively
Thanks for expanding this discussion with your real life examples!
Kate
Thanks for the tips Kate. I like the approach in your article of framing the profit loss to organizations by neglecting personality styles.