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Building self-awareness in regards to the various styles showed me how I can best accomplish tasks. The analytical part of me that is a persistent problem solver needs to accept imperfection. Doing so would enable me to be faster in getting tasks done, which would set the driver part of me up for success. It would also bring me more enjoyment in the process of completing the tasks because I would not be so self-critical and harsh on others. As a result, the amiable part of me would feel fulfilled because the strategy would help me have friendly, personal relationships with others. From there, in order to accomplish tasks, I would get in touch with the driver aspect of my style. I can focus on my own strengths, such as administrative and operational skills, and stay motivated by keeping close track of my progress. Considering my tendency to juggle many thing at once, along with the subsequent outcome of me letting everything drop and starting the whole process over again, I could accomplish more by doing one task at a time and committing to it. Additionally, since enthusiasm is one of my expressive characteristics that leads to me being productive, I need to sustain it and put myself in situations that let it shine.

Further, given the different styles around me, delegating tasks is a strategy to best accomplish tasks. Schwefel (n.d.) questioned, how well do you know what you’re capable of doing and other people? Particularly, considering that I do not have a dominant style, I want to leverage the law of multiple intelligences and empower people to specialize in the areas that they excel at. While delegating, it is important that I know the style of the followers so that I can conduct myself in a way that coincides with them. Specifically, amiable people would prefer for me to make a personal appeal to their loyalty, analytical people what me to take time to answer all their questions about structure and guidance, drivers would want me to tell them the end goal and then get out of their way, and expressive people would need to be in agreement with the project (EBS University 2018). That way, I can give them more ownership and they will feel more connected to the company’s success.

In order to further help people buy-in, I have to motivate, compliment, counsel and correct them in ways that align with their personality types (EBS University 2018). It is easier in situations where we have the same characteristics. However, since I have such a wide range of characteristics, it is difficult for me to identify a follower’s characteristics and acted aligned, rather than opposite, from him/her. A success story comes from when I was training a barista at the coffee shop. I noticed that amiable was her dominant style. I also saw that her strength was making drinks as opposed to being on register. So, in order to give her personal assurance, I let her make drinks during her first few days on the job even though most employees have to wait longer. She was able to show off her latte art and ended up becoming less hesitant in the tasks she originally was not as good at. We had a lot of similar amiable characteristics. It taught me that, in the future, great results will happen insofar as I recognize the characteristics I have in common with followers and act accordingly.

From there, I can enhance my leadership skills by learning how to connect with others who have characteristics different from my own. For example, as a follower, I made efforts to develop friendly relationships with all of my coworkers and authority figures. I also showed signs of having a driver dominated style as I started doing well at the job with a fast-paced, task-oriented demeanor. I was disappointed when some of the driver authority figures were closed off from developing casual relationships. EBS University (2018) suggested to keep relationships business-like with drivers. However, my productivity as a follower started to go down when my amiable need was informality and it was required to have a trust in leadership. The dynamic began to feel insincere. I needed motivation that my revenue generation would benefit my relationships and did not get it. In the future, if I am in a position of lower authority and the boss is not adapting to my style, I will decide to become a social leader and adapt to theirs.

In my job as a forestry technician, I was placed with a variety of trainers, and one leader was particularly awesome. He brought a lot of ease by demonstrating that our data results did not need to be perfect. We were gathering data on trees for a company that did not have the budget to tend to every single one that we identified. So, we skipped some areas that were difficult to access. It helped that he provided facts to explain why we could be content with imperfection. He balanced out my analytical characteristic of being overly self-critical. Considering that he was a dominant analytical style, his ability to adapt in this situation for the purpose of balancing my overly analytical characteristic was key. At the same time, he followed EBS University’s (2018) advice by giving me a lot of personal assurance which satisfied my amiable characteristic to have my feelings be supported by others. Specifically, he gave me compliments in regards to my ability to get along with others (EBS University 2018). Since he is not amiable, it was clear that he was not planning to take the course of action for the amiable but adjusted according to the circumstance. I learned that willingness to adapt is key. I look forward to implementing the lessons I learned from my range of experiences with social styles.

References:

EBS University. 2018. “SELF‐ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL STYLES.” https://www.ebsuniversity.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/SocialStyles-Assessment.pdf

Schwefel, Scott. Year (n.d.) “Your Personality and Your Brain.” TEDxBrookings. YouTube. Dec 15, 2014. Video, 15:53. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pq_tCgDkT4

Comment by Robert Gnuse:

Mary, good self-assessment based on your style and accompanying details. It seems you are aware of your current challenges and strengths. Building a style is not easy as it takes flexibility to be able to modify one’s approach based on the current situation.

Good use of lessons learned via the styles reviewed and personal experiences. Good explanation regarding adaptability as it is often undervalued. A simple example to consider is how the various “colors” regarding style actually compliment each other in various facets.