Understanding others' preferences is a crucial skill for effective leadership, enabling clearer communication, stronger relationships, and better team collaboration. Leaders can gain valuable insight into these preferences by observing behavior, actively listening, and adapting their communication style accordingly.
Key Insights
- Observe verbal and non-verbal cues, such as communication style and group interaction, to identify others’ dominant personality types and preferences.
- Build trust through personal connection and direct questions about communication and decision-making preferences to create a respectful, collaborative environment.
- Adjust communication style to align with others’ preferences, known as style adjusting, to improve clarity, increase message reception, and enhance conflict resolution and persuasion.
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We want to think about how we can go about understanding what someone else's preferences are. What are their preferences usually based upon their dominant personality type? So how do we understand someone else's preferences? How do we potentially identify what their dominant personality type is? This is really important for leaders to understand and be able to do this. So the first thing is to observe other people and to really see how they behave.
Do they ask for really detailed, fact-based information? Do they seem to prefer to receive information really quickly, with maybe just one or two bullet points? Do they really seem to enjoy being in a large group setting, or do they tend to speak with people one-on-one? So that the ability and the time dedicated to observing people really gives you great insight into what their preference is and what their possible personality, a dominant personality style, is. Active listening is another great way to really understand people's preferences. And I've run into this a lot where people will say, you know, oh my boss says that they don't want me to send them long emails anymore, but I keep doing it because it makes me feel better to send them all the information.
We need to actively listen and act on the clues that people give us constantly about what their preferences are. Because if we pay attention, a lot of times people will tell us what they want, what they need, but we have to be listening enough to understand that, and it will give us that insight into what their preferences are. We also should be able to understand the importance of observing non-verbal cues.
And, you know, during hybrid and virtual work, I really talk to a lot of people about being on camera for just this specific reason. Because we don't realize how much of our communication is non-verbal, both as I communicate to someone else and as I'm listening to them. Because in fact, I listen with my eyes as well as I listen with my ears.
So it's really challenging to actively listen to someone if you cannot see them at the same time and observe their non-verbal cues. We get a lot of information and a lot of understanding of people's preferences by being able to read those non-verbal cues. We also need to take time and energy to build trust with people.
And as a leader, you should create these opportunities for your team members. So we're going to talk later about team building, but creating opportunities for people to get to know each other as human beings and begin to form connections creates a foundation of trust among people who work together. And it's really important.
And as a leader, you need to invest time and energy in getting to know people, building trust with your employees, and other people that you work with. And as you build trust, you'll be able to get greater insight into who that person is and what their preferences are. Another thing that we sometimes forget is how important it is to ask questions.
How do you prefer to receive information? How do you like to make decisions? All of the things that we've talked about where preferences may be different, it's great to just ask people, hey, I'm excited we're going to be working together on this. Let's talk about, you know, how you prefer to receive communication. It's just a great way to show people that you are interested in their perspective and trying to meet their preferences and needs.
And it's a great way to not just guess about what somebody's preferences might be, but to get it actually directly from them. And then, of course, to show respect, right? Because obviously, we have four main personality types. All the preferences tend to be very different.
And we want to be sure that it's clear that we respect the fact that some people may have different preferences from others. Okay, so once again, why is it important to understand others' preferences? Well, when we take the time to do that, it can really help us develop and maintain stronger relationships with the people that we're leading or the people that we're working with. And it really is a sign of effective leadership.
I'm going to be able to lead someone better if I've taken the time to understand their preferences. It also helps us with communication because, again, as I said earlier, if you're able to communicate with someone in a way that meets their preference, they're more likely to hear what the message is that you're giving them. So your communication ability or your ability to be an effective communicator is going to increase.
And, of course, all of this can lead to better teamwork. I'm able to work better in a team if I have taken the time to understand everyone's preferences on the team. Obviously, I cannot adjust to every single person's preference at every single moment on the team, but making that effort, understanding those preferences, and considering those preferences can be really important.
And another thing that we find is that it can also help us resolve conflicts a little bit faster when we understand preferences. And the earlier video reviewed how people are likely to react in a conflict resolution situation, and so being able to identify their primary personality style and have that information in mind can really help you if you're in a situation trying to resolve conflict. Now, I've mentioned a few times in this video the concept of style adjusting, and I just kind of have a quick definition of that here.
It's adapting your style to strengthen your ability to communicate clearly and increase the likelihood that others will hear your message. So it's obvious we all have our dominant style, and that is going to be the most natural way that we are going to communicate or make decisions or resolve conflict or be assertive or any of those things. But what the argument with style adjusting is, even though it may be opposite of what our natural style is, if we can adopt our style to the style of the other person, it increases the likelihood they will hear us, and it will increase our ability to communicate more clearly.
So, for instance, if I need to communicate with an analyzer, even though it is not my natural style to be very fact-based and detail-oriented, I can incorporate data and facts in my communication to that analyzer, and it can strengthen my ability to communicate directly with them because I am communicating in the style that they prefer instead of my own. It will increase the likelihood that they will hear my message because I'm communicating to them, giving those facts in a very detail-oriented way that they like to use. And in general, it can be very useful for influencing or persuading that other person of something.
So if I'm trying to persuade an analyzer to, you know, agree with a path forward for something that we're working on together, and I'm able to provide data and details and all of that, that can be a way to increase the likelihood that I will be able to persuade them in that manner.
