It’s easy to pinpoint who is loud in meetings and who is shy but have you considered what you can do in the way you communicate with each of your team members to help them flourish?

If you don’t know where to start, click through to find out more about common personality tests such as DISC and Myers-Briggs.

Spending the time to get to know yourself a little better can help you become a far better leader in the future, especially when it comes to ways in which you communicate with your team. It’s common to sympathise with team members who are more like us by default, but this could be causing more harm than good.

Not knowing the personality types of your entire team, including yourself, can be potentially damaging to your leadership. Having an understanding of personality types means you are able to leverage your own personality to benefit your team in different situations, while not knowing can lead to ineffective communication – a sure way to damage team performance.

For example, an introverted team member may not particularly enjoy sharing ideas aloud or running a presentation in a group setting; this aversion does not mean the individual cannot contribute in an important and effective way, it means encouraging them to play to their strengths is additionally important – particularly if they incorrectly feel they add ‘less value’ as a result of their shyness.

Avoid pigeonholing your team members. It is important to remember that people are constantly growing and learning – personality types can change despite the saying about old dogs and new tricks! Always challenge your team to try new ways of learning and encourage everyone using the communication methods they respond to best.

Some easy ways to harness your team’s preferred communication methods so that they are all learning and contributing to their best potential:

• Use the resources at your fingertips to create dynamic presentations that have a great mix of visuals, text, audio and interactive components. Without overloading your team, there will be something to appeal to everyone.
• Send out your initial ideas for meetings in an email ahead of time. Those who are more inclined to introversion will appreciate having extra time to gather their thoughts and extroverts will appreciate the chance to communicate their ideas to you.
• Ask direct questions of introverted team members, after they have had time to listen intently and think over the material.
• Use the extroverts to your advantage and use their comments and interjections to move your team discussions forward.

If you want to be a leader who harnesses personality types to be a great leader, People Make the Difference can help you with training workshops, one-on-one coaching and Coach On Call services. To find out more, call us on 0412 333 415 or visit peoplemakethedifference.com.au.