Leadership - Personality - action
Personality - action
Take the time
We know that if you can understand the personality traits of your team members it should improve your interaction with them.
The thing you must do is to take the time to consider their personalities.
There is an obvious requirement to carry out either analysis via tests or questionnaire, for example, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, FIRO-B or OPQ.
When they are complete take the time to consider the implications of the results and produce an action plan for future relations.
Stress and change
What ever your personality traits stress can have the effect of magnifying your characteristic behaviours.
If you are extrovert your behaviours may become stronger under stressful conditions.
An introvert thinker may demand more data and time to think than would be their norm.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® is very good at in depth analysis of styles of behaviour in terms of say leadership.
Dealing with conflict
Dealing with conflict has two major issues.
- Managing your own personality so that you don’t exacerbate the conflict.
- Understanding the other person’s personality so you again minimise conflict and resolve issues as soon as possible.
You can use your matrix table that you considered earlier under team dynamics. Hopefully, this table is fairly current and contains the response information for a variety of persons. This may be a first point of reference in a conflict situation. How did talks with this person proceed in the past?
Conflict has a habit of bringing out the negative aspects in people’s behaviour.
When you consider personalities focus on how you have and will handle some of these negative points.
Resolving conflicts will be a big test of your influencing skills.
Structured environment
Many people find it hard to work outside a structured environment. They like to know what to do.
They like to know that systems exist to help them in their jobs. This is a little like delegation where the new person will need a lot more coaching and structure initially. Once they are experienced they will be expected to work much more independently and delegation bears greater fruit.
In the same way, if you work in a culture where the norm is free thinking, great independence, loose systems etc you may find it very irritating.
Conversely, if you prefer a freer thinking role and like to ‘get on with work’ a host of systems and other structures may feel like a positive hindrance.
Where does this ‘structure’ come from? Clearly, no one can work in the complete absence of structure otherwise chaos would reign.
Structure is set by senior managers as a result of managing efficiently as well as being driven by legal requirements and best practice.
This becomes a dilemma as you move further up the senior management ladder. You will need to move away from detail and start setting the structure. This is the essence of leadership that it will be up to you to set the vision, create the standard and manage the systems and strategies that will achieve the vision.
Some people will find it more difficult that others to move away from detail and towards setting the standards.
The point is, you must recognise this as a natural requirement of leadership, accept it and manage the change in your own behaviour.
Personality regeneration
The stresses of work can have a significant impact upon your personality.
Long hours doing a repetitive action can leave no time to unwind.
When we are happy with our personality and we feel relaxed we respond to tasks with enthusiasm and high energy.
When we are run down we bring only a fraction of our energy and concentration to a task with the potential for mistakes.
Try to create your own space to regenerate your personality.
Think about hobbies that will take your mind away from the usual stresses of work.
The better you feel internally the better you will be able to cope with the stresses of increasing leadership demands.