Posted: Dec. 28, 2023, 10:23 a.m.
People are fascinated with identifying and labeling types of people—even Hogwarts had the sorting hat to help Harry Potter know if he was really a Slytherin or meant to be a Gryffindor! The rest of us are stuck taking online quizzes to see which Hogwarts house we fall into or which character in Friends we are (I always hoped to be Joey, but ended up being Ross).
Behavior and personality assessments can be incredibly useful when building efficient teams that work well together. You can’t have a team of all processors and no motivators—and what would task-oriented leaders do without the socio-emotional leaders?
Understanding team dynamics and behaviors is a powerful tool when it comes to managing and motivating teams.
Over 2 million people a year take the Myers-Briggs assessment, and StrengthsFinders 2.0 was on the Top Ten Best Selling Books on Amazon for ten years in a row.
But it is not enough to just be able to categorize yourself and others as “personality types.”
The real strength in gaining this understanding is to use it to better your leadership, your relationships, and your teams.
This means that we need not only to understand how we are showing up and how our personality at work impacts those around us, but it also means we need to understand others.
As I have noted before, it is in the space between us that management, leadership, and teams happen. They are relationships. So understanding our differences is a powerful tool for managing those relationships.
I may be driven at work by connecting to others, but that does not mean everyone else is. I remember one particular team member years ago. He was quiet and liked his time alone. He was an introvert, but that didn't hinder his productivity at all. At first, we didn't work as cohesively as we could have: I saw him as standoffish and he saw me as rude and intrusive. Once I took the time to talk to him in more depth about the tension, we realized what was going on and learned that when we balanced our differences, we were a great team that could cover the details and big picture in our work together. We just had to learn to adapt to each other's styles.
All teams need key roles filled.
We need renewal (creativity and growth), we need cohesion (positive relationships and trust, we need processes (stability, and details), and we need delivery (forward momentum, and task focus). Teams and organizations need to foster all of these perspectives and more importantly, manage how those with different perspectives interact so that the team and organization are as highly functioning and effective as possible.
It’s important to remember: behavior and personality assessments can be helpful tools but they are not meant to be used to label. Just because you identify as highly directive doesn’t mean you have to boss people around. Or, just because you are an introvert doesn’t mean you can't speak up.
When you can identify and understand the way you, or others, show up, you can better know when and how to adapt. Regardless of our personality, we can understand when or how to adjust our actions or words in the best interest of our team and workplace.
Rather than label yourself or others and then write them off, lean into understanding and adapting. For example, when conflict arises in a team or workplace setting, rather than slapping a personality type label as the cause of conflict, stop and take the time to think about the unique qualities of your team.
Ask yourself:
- Does this help us understand conflict and find ways to get past it?
- Does it identify key roles that aren’t being filled that need to be?
- Are there conflicts simply from the different ways we approach work
- Are there things that we can adapt or adjust to make the team more effective or relationships stronger
When you apply an understanding of yourself and others, you can become a better leader, manager, employee, and generally a better communicator in life. Ready to level up as a new manager? Contact Us to learn more about how you can better support your team.