Understanding Personality Types to Dramatically Upgrade your Communication Skills

We are encouraged to treat others as we would wish to be treated ourselves, but by learning about the different temperament types, we can actually step into their shoes and understand how they would be like to be treated.  In doing this, we can become much more flexible and sensitive communicators.  

There are fantastic tests and tools available online to discover your own and others temperament types.  However, it can be much more useful to learn the basic patterns and preferences, so that you have your own short cut to recognizing why people are talking and behaving as they are, in real time.

There are many different temperament or personality models, with the oldest known going back to Hippocrates over 2000 years ago.  But whether you lived in ancient Greek or now in modern Dubai, people are people and to a certain degree predictable.

  Are you or others task focused, or people focused?

The first building block in recognizing tendencies, is to note if someone is more task or people focused.   Although we all fit somewhere along the continuum, with some even balanced in the middle, many people have an obvious preference. 

Just imagine a kindergarten teacher having to command an army under siege, or a stage performer, working alone on complex mathematical equations all day, to see the obvious contrast in these ‘types’.  Stereotypes exist for a reason. 

Are you or others more introverted or extroverted?

The other continuum in this model is whether someone is more introverted or extroverted.  This can be tricky to gauge, especially if you are more in the middle.  But imagine someone who thinks carefully before they speak, compared with someone else who ‘makes it up’ as they go along, or someone quiet and reserved compared with someone is more gregarious and opinionated. 

A lot of situational comedy comes from these contrasts, as well as workplace conflict, but as frustrating as opposites can be, they can also attract or complement.  Which is why if we are thinking about diversity in a team, it is worth considering temperament.  As a team of extroverts will be a team of extroverts, whatever culture or country you are from.

If we can observe on which side of each line our colleague, client, family member, etc, falls on, we can then discover which of the four basic ‘types’ they belong to and because these are same four types which Socrates identified all those years ago, and others since, we can gain access to a vast library of information regarding how and why each will likely think, speak, act, decide in the way they do.  As Stephen Covey said in his ‘7 Habits’ Classic, we should seek to understand before being understood.  He was referring to listening before speaking, but if you also watch, observe and recognize patterns in others, you will not only understand them better, but will be able to tailor your communications to hit the mark.

Combining the two preferences, we find the four basic temperament types.  Some people are predominately just one of the four.  Others are a combination of two types. 

A task focused extrovert who likes to get things done often finds themselves in leadership positions.   Hence the label: Ruler.   They like to take command of situations and take quick efficient decisions, but if not balanced with concern for people (which is opposite to their preference) they can become tyrants, at work or home.

The other extrovert in the four types is the Entertainer.  But here it expresses itself quite differently.  Extroverts generally tend to have more confidence in communicating, especially in stressful or group situations.  In the Ruler, this may express as commands to act with speed.  They want results in the task – yesterday!  The Entertainer isn’t concerned so much with the task but with people, and particularly impressing or entertaining those people.  Often gregarious and creative, they can be distractible and less than thorough, but like with all types, in the right situation or team, their strengths as innovators, free thinkers and communicators can be a huge asset.

The Relator, who likes to get along with everyone, is also people oriented.  However, because of their introversion, it is more likely to be expressed as kindness and attention to the small details about others, which makes them feel heard and valued.   They won’t hog all the time and attention at the office meeting, but they might bring along a cake for a colleagues’ birthday to it.   Their humility and desire to help, can make them the ideal flexible assistant to a busy leader; however, they will be more effective at work, if they balance the need to be liked, with the necessity to be assertive with others who may take advantage of their ‘easy-goingness’.  

The final ‘type’ is the Analyzer, who likes to be left alone to focus on the details of a task, whether it is the notes of a musical composition, or the numbers in a calculation, these are your patient perfectionists.  Because they are introverted, they are also more likely to think before they speak and research before they decide.  They are likely to view the entertainers as being flaky and scattered, and to the entertainer they will be seen as picky and boring. 

When we view others through our own preferences, we can get frustrated and our egos can make us see only our strengths and only their weaknesses.  But from a truly diversity valuing, abundance perspective, we can work to compensate for each other’s weaknesses with our strengths.   The obliging ‘Relator, by observing and appreciating the assertive self-directed achiever, can themselves learn to take more control of their lives, just as the ‘Rulers’ yang dominance can be moderated by the presence the relators yielding yin.

The Analyzer can also recognize that although the entertainer talks without thinking and decides without research, they often do have a strong intuition, and can energize a team with their upbeat energy, something that an Analyzer could use to balance their slow paralysis through analysis hesitation.   Likewise, the Entertainer with shoddy fact checking and task completion, could take a page from the patient and accurate Analyst.

All types can complement others in the workplace but can also be each other’s teachers in helping to balance out any over dependence on a certain way of thinking and acting.

A great leader and communicator generally, has a good balance of all four preferences, and is able to adjust to the need of the moment.  They can get things done, influence through charm, win hearts with caring, and plan and strategize with clarity to achieve results.

There are other models which can help us to explore the various combinations of the four types.  For example, Michael Jackson and Jack Black are both entertainers, but their physical appearances, and communication styles show that they are quite different characters.  Michael Jackson known to be a perfectionist may be a Entertain/Analyzer combination.  Wherever Jack Black may be a full Entertainer or have relator tendencies.

Understand Different Personality types is just one of the many useful and interesting topics we explore in our Advanced Office Management & Effective Administration Skills training course.   If you join us for the whole week, you gain further knowledge and confidence in recognizing your own and others’ strengths, weaknesses, tendencies and preferences and how to work with them and around them.    You will not just become a better communicator but a personality detective, amateur psychologist, and a lot more self-aware in the process.