We often perform the best when we are under the lead of someone we respect, or better yet, we feel respects us. Think back to your high school or college days. Did it ever surprise you that you ended up enjoying the class and working the hardest not for your favorite subject, but for your favorite teacher?
The same is true in our careers. We will work harder for leaders who demonstrate their respect for us and who have our backs too. Yet as a manager or leader, how can you appeal to everyone? It seems largely impossible to be everyone’s favorite, right?
SOCIAL STYLE and Versatility training equips us with the knowledge to enhance our interpersonal effectiveness and boost our working relationships with our co-workers and employees. Taking on a managerial role or leading a team requires a great deal of support from the people we are leading. To optimize that support, having an understanding of what someone’s behaviors are telling us is crucial. This allows us to assess how they prefer to be treated. Similarly, a heightened awareness of ourselves is important – especially when leading. If a leader is oblivious to the fact that he is only appealing to his same Style counterparts, he will only be gaining support from approximately 25% of his audience (depending on what industry you are in.)
Same Style counterparts – what does that mean? Well, we all have an inherent SOCIAL STYLE which dictates our preferred behavior and ways we prefer to be treated. Each SOCIAL STYLE has backup behaviors that arise when we feel threatened, but each SOCIAL STYLE is triggered by different threats. For example, the Analytical Style person feels threatened when they are perceived as wrong. They have a need to be right and work meticulously to ensure their correctness before coming to a conclusion, so when they are viewed as wrong or others tell them they are wrong when they have done so much hard work to come to a conclusion, they can resort to backup behavior.
Having an awareness and understanding of SOCIAL STYLE allows leaders to understand their employees on a heightened level. This allows them to more appropriately motivate, inspire, manage conflict and provide constructive feedback that will be useful to that individual person.
