Leadership: Tips for Motivating Employees by Personality Type
Even the most confident leader can find it difficult to manage and motivate a diverse team of individuals with an array of personality types and idiosyncrasies. However, when you understand what motivates a person – what they desire – you can tap into that natural source of positive energy, creating a better environment for everyone. Here are tips for motivating employees by personality type.
Generally speaking, it’s safe to say that your team members possess some of the following traits: they’re either an introvert or extrovert, passive or dynamic, and left brain or right brain. By identifying your employees’ main personality traits, you’ll find that in turn, it’s easier to identify their individual needs.
It’s clear that the best results come from internal motivation. Dan Pink talks about universal intrinsic motivators being autonomy, mastery and purpose (this TED Talk has been around for a while but still rings true).
Taking these three key motivators into consideration, individual personality traits represent ways that people are naturally inclined to do well (and therefore feel good about accomplishing tasks that relate).
Here are tips for motivating each of the six most common personality traits:
- Introvert (Ex: The Protector)
Introverts need tasks that they can do alone in a private space. Allow freedom and flexibility.
- Extravert (Ex: The Caretaker)Extroverts crave people, interaction and activity. Allow freedom of movement and collaboration.
- Passive (Ex: The Advocate)
Passive individuals desire specific detailed tasks. As people-pleasers, they’re motivated by positive feedback from team and leadership.
- Dynamic (Ex: The Visionary)Dynamic personality types need opportunities to be seen as a leader. They enjoy winning, being the public face of business, and making things happen.
- Left brain (Ex: The Strategist)Left brain individuals enjoy taking on projects that involve research, problem solving and logical analysis.
- Right brain (Ex: The Dreamer)Remove barriers to allow intuition, creativity and big picture thinking.
Each personality type offers positive traits toward the team as a whole. As a manager, it’s up to you to understand how to motivate each type so that the team can hum along together like a well-oiled machine. Start out by hiring people who are the right fit for your organizational culture. Then tap into their internal motivational fire to create ultimate productivity.
Happiness fuels happiness – keep your team motivated, inspired and appreciated, and your job as a manager gets easier!
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