The Secret to Strong Teams
Do you know that understanding different personality types can help you grow as a leader?
Anyone who is in a leadership position knows that leadership requires patience and understanding. This is true whether the person has been a leader for years, or is only beginning to acquire leadership skills. It is also true whether the person is an employee or a business owner.
What is it about leadership that demands so much patience and understanding? The answer is simple: people.
During my training sessions, I emphasize that a great leader takes time to understand every member of their team by spending time with them and learning about their personality type. This requires a lot of patience, time, commitment, and understanding.
"When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity."
- Dale Carnegie, author of "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
In his book, Who Do You Think You Are Anyway? author Dr. Robert A. Rohm tells us that true leaders are not picked, they pick themselves. This makes it all the more important to find a way to work effectively with a variety of personality types.
If the talented people on your team with their unique personality styles do not feel supported, they will not reach their potential. This is why it is crucial to harness the power of leadership and lead your team by showing your full support for each and every one of them.
None of us wants to lose a “leader in the rough” simply because we can't work with that individual. Rather than looking for weaker people who are easily led, what if we looked for stronger people and then helped them develop?
Effective leaders can be found in every imaginable personality style.
Most people have predictable patterns of behaviour.
We all have our own distinctive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. That is what we mean when we refer to a personality style.
As Dr. Rohm tells us, because of our personality style, we respond to incidents in our lives in predictable ways.
You could say that we view life through certain filters.
By having an understanding of your personality type, and how it affects the way you respond to changes and make decisions, you can grow as a team member and as a leader.
Luckily, there are various psychological tools that enable people to analyze, chart, and understand their unique personality style.
We can all benefit from understanding ourselves better. Self-understanding makes it so much easier to deal with life and all the changes it involves.
Understanding different personality types
Dr. Robert Rohm uses a system called DISC profiles to help people understand their personality style:
- Dominant, Driving, Doer
These personality types enjoy being in charge. They like to lead and make things happen.
- Inspiring, Influencing, Impulsive
Someone with this personality type loves being around people, having fun, talking, and telling stories.
- Steady, Stable, Supportive
A supportive personality type is comfortable in supportive roles. They find happiness by simply being part of a team.
- Competent, Cautious, Careful
These types of people have very predictable behaviours and are more systematic in their lifestyle.
It is simple to tell a person’s personality type: you just have to watch how they behave and react in certain types of situations.
Behaviour is a strong clue. By understanding people’s behaviour, you can get a better understanding of who they are. This is because people fall into predictable patterns of behaviour.
These patterns are particularly clear during moments of stress.
The Carnegie Foundation, Harvard University and Stanford Research Institute did a research study on why people get jobs, keep jobs, and move ahead in their careers. According to this study, 15 percent of the reason is technical skills and knowledge. The other 85 percent has to do with people skills and people knowledge.
If you know your personality style and how to read personality styles in other people's behaviour, you will succeed in your career.
Remember: teams only work when the people involved understand and accommodate their differences and work together. Leadership is the same.
It is crucial to understand yourself as well as others in order to grow and succeed in your career. The art of understanding yourself and others can also help you develop stronger relationships, build more effective teams, and have a more productive life.
Understanding yourself can turn you into an even greater leader.
A strong team starts with you
Spend time with your team. Engage in active listening with them (you can learn more about active listening here). Don't be afraid to welcome people who have a personality style different from your own! If everyone on your team had the same personality style, they would compete.
Build a team of diverse people and they will complete one another.
As leaders, it's not what we leave to the people on our team that matters. It's what we leave in them.
Spend time with your team, learn their personality styles, and learn to appreciate their skills. If you do, they will be inspired and some of them will become the unique leaders of the future.
Call to Action:
- Take a leadership personality profile assessment. Learn about your personality. Develop an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.
- Seek to understand the unique personality of each member of your team. Get a better understanding of all the different personality types that are on your team.
- Take time to develop your team, lead them, and inspire great leaders of the future. Spend time with them and help them grow.
The best is yet to come. It starts with you.
Your friends,
The UpCloseTeam
For more tips on how to be a great leader, check out this blog post. You can also use our Personality Leadership Report to better understand your strengths and weaknesses as a leader.
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