Connect better with your team

Maxwell DISC Assessments and reports are designed to raise the awareness of individuals by helping them to understand themselves and those they lead better. The assessments divide personalities into four groups which make up the acronym DISC. D stands for Dominant or Driver, I for Influencing or Inspiring, S for Stable or Steady, and C for Compliant or Correct.

One of the areas that the assessments focus on which we will dive into this week is communication. Effective leadership calls for communicating in a way that is clear and results in connection which produces better results.

Last week, we created our leader P, a general manager, and some of P’s attributes are being easy going and direct with high standards for themselves and those they lead. P is also visionary and is good at motivating team members to get results.

With this summary in mind, we will now proceed to look at how P can be able to communicate and connect better with team members who are wired differently. Let us make use of the Maxwell DISC Assessment.

Team members who display the D personality may be decisive, risk takers, self-starters, and strong willed. The value they bring to the team is their innovation and vision. Their areas of growth include avoiding taking on more than they can handle. In addition, they need to learn how to handle work that is routine and mundane.

The Is tend to be sociable, enthusiastic, and optimistic which makes them a great asset to the team as encouragers, and creative problem solvers. Their areas of growth include giving more attention to details and focusing on work instead of being more concerned about their popularity with the other team members.

Due to their talkative nature, when communicating with Is, allow them to share their ideas but give them specific instructions in a concise manner. 

The S category tend to be good listeners and friendly which makes them good team players. Their patient and empathetic nature makes them good at reconciling conflicts. Areas of growth for team members with an S personality include being more open to change and taking constructive criticism better. S personality highly value being appreciated as part of the team.

When communicating with S, avoid confrontation, keep your tone conversational, and commend them for their dedication and loyalty to the team. Avoid making sudden changes. 

Finally, C team members tend to be analytical, conscientious, systematic, and precise. Their conscientious nature makes them valuable to the team. Cs have very high stands and tend to be hard on themselves and those they lead. The areas for them to work on include not getting bogged down with the details, facts and figures, speaking up more instead of holding their feelings inside, being more open to collegiate working with divergent views.

We conclude this week with the fact that as individuals with different personalities, we respond better when we are communicated to in a way that honours our differences. It is incumbent upon leaders to do the work of discovering who their team members are so that they can effectively communicate and get the results they need.

This week, spend some time getting to know the personalities of your team members and communicate to connect.

Rossette Wamambe is a transformational leadership coach with the Maxwell Certified Leadership Team | [email protected]