A Great Weekend

I had a great weekend. I met a lot of new people, made some new friends and contacts, and spent time working on some leadership and communication skills. At the moment, I'm still processing the experience, and assessing the aftermath. Look for an update later this week to see some of what I learned, and some new actions items for myself.

In the meantime, I had some interesting conversations during the weekend, and thought I would reiterate something for anyone who found there way over to my blog. One of the hardest and most important things a Leader can do is COMMUNICATE. There are severeal reason why this doesn't tend to happen, but perhaps the largest is that people have a tendency to think that we all Communicate the same way. 

In reality, that is not the case. You've probably heard of the Meyers Briggs personality test (which I posted a little about here). That profile is interesting, but it is too cumbersome.  A leader should be able to read his or her people and adjust the communication style based on that. There is another personality profile: the DiSC profile. 

D: Dominance

i:   influence

S: Steadiness

C: Conscientiousness

From Careerminds.com

This is easier to identify, and there is a book that helps identify the personality of the members of your team as well as yourself. It then tells you how to communicated with them. The book is People Styles At Work by Robert and Dorothy Bolton (Affiliate link below):

A bit of clarification: People Styles uses different terms (with DiSC profile types listed in parenthesis):

D: Dominant (D)

E: Extrovert (i)

An: Analytical (S)
Am: Amiable (C)

from agilepartnership.com

This is a book I give to friends, loan to co-workers, and encourage my mentees / coachees to read. Why? Because it not only helps you nail down your Communication style, but that of your team as well.

How important is that?

If you can't Communicate with your team in the manner they need, they will shut you out. You need to flex to the receiver of the Communication and ensure that the message transmitted is received.

Start with this book. Then build from there.

And more lessons from my weekend to come!