Upskill as a Manager Using Behavioural Styles
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The study of behavioural styles has been a subject of management theory for many years. It develops knowledge around how to create productive team working by understanding the elements of behaviour.
What are behavioural styles?
In short, there are anything upwards of four main behavioural styles. Each of us have more than one in varying degrees and will lead more strongly with one of them.
The four main behavioural styles are:
?No one behavioural style is better than another, we need a mix of all four for any business and team to work together and thrive.
?Building relationships
Being a manager is really difficult. If you want to build relationships, it is powerful to understand the people on your team’s behaviours. Why they do what they do, so you can connect with them more effectively. You will then be able to adapt to their behaviour and won’t be as frustrated. Behavioural styles identify different ways that people work and understanding these styles helps you work around issues and thrive as a manager.
?Do you treat people the way YOU want to be treated or the way THEY want to be treated?
My mother always taught me to treat everyone the way I would expect to be treated. Yes, this is a good ethic to have, but does it work when you are trying to influence others as a manager??If we treat people the way we expect to be treated, we are not understanding how they work and adapting to their needs. Change your focus to managing the team, identifying their needs and then building relationships.
As Dr Tony Alessandra, who based his work on Behavioural Styles said, “Treat people the way THEY want to be treated.” As a manager, your team need to feel comfortable with you, like you and trust you, so that you can work together to achieve your goals and be a successful team. Understanding behavioural styles gives you the insight you need to treat people the way they want to be treated.
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?Behavioural styles in a real-life situation
Let me tell you about a story about a manager I coached recently on Behavioural Styles. He was a successful manager but had one major problem. This was that he often felt frustrated by two people on his team. These frustrations were small to begin with, then escalated causing him to react to them, not work with them.
?When he felt frustrated, he often would become emotional. It wasn’t major frustrations; it was the small niggly things.
?Just get on with it!
I’ll tell you about one situation he had recently. In meetings, one particular person would ask question after question after question, needing to know all the information in detail. At first, the manager was fine with this, but when they were short of time, he would become very angry and not want to answer the questions. He just wanted to get on with the meeting because he had so many other things to talk about in the meeting. The situation escalated with the questioning really niggling him until he snapped and became aggressive, telling him to ‘just get on with it.’
?What he didn’t understand was that this particular person is a thinker, examiner, analyst and needed to know the details. Whereas the manager I was coaching is a director, a go-getter. His approach is fast paced and he wanted to get things done quickly. He had certain goals he wanted to achieve and didn’t have time for the details, it was a waste of time in his eyes.
?I went through an exercise with him about how to connect with a thinker, and you can see some tips on this in this YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY2GMkS0nag
?Giving it time
After coaching him, he realized he had to give this more time, more detail and ask them if they had any more questions. In changing his thought process and his approach to the situation, his frustrations stopped. He became more patient, and he understood why each member of his team behaved in certain ways.
?Once you understand individuals’ behaviours, you’ll connect with them more effectively and improve your working relationships. This will also help with both yours and their mental health. You will feel better in your relationships with them, and they will feel more confident when working with you. The result will be that you work together in a more positive environment, achieving goals quicker and more easily.
?If you want to know more, book in a research call here. https://calendly.com/novaassociates/research-call. I am putting together a Membership Programme to help managers enhance a culture of positive mental health to think, feel, communicate and manager like a leader. We can talk about what you would believe would work best in this programme to help your managers have unshakeable power, passion and productivity.