Getting the Best from Your Team

“Your company might be struggling, and your pay might be mediocre but if you have an inspiring and dynamic boss you will likely stick around – and go the extra mile for them as well.”

The first step to becoming an effective leader is to know yourself – all that is good and admirable and all the stuff that makes you want to hide under the bed. Because the good news is you can change and grow. This is a choice you have to make. The stronger your commitment and the more often and courageously you act in the face of discomfort, the greater a leader you will become.

Your style of leadership will play a major part in determining the success or failure of your business. The Enneagram will help you to identify which one of the 9 Personality Types you are and how you can develop your skills to become a better leader.

To become a great leader means taking stock of who you are – all your strengths and weaknesses. It means being brutally honest and humbly hearing how others view you. The Enneagram will afford you the most insightful information on how you perform under stress and on a normal day.

Once you have obtained an honest view of how you are likely to perform in a myriad of business situations you can address any shortcomings you were unaware of. You can then approach getting the best from your team in a new light.

When you expand the Enneagram course to embrace your Management Team you will find that you have a number of different personality types working with you, and they in turn have the ability to make a more substantial contribution to the business, when they realise the full extent of their potential in any given role.

A range of personality types is essential to any successful team. Some team members are great leaders who inspire others around them and raise them to higher levels than they could normally reach. Other members of the team are quieter but contribute by having a far-ranging knowledge of the business and its requirements. Each member of the team will bring unique qualities to the table. The perfectionists will produce exacting reports while the achievers are driven to get every worthwhile idea past the post. You will have adventurers who are never short of a new idea or a better way of doing things in the business. Then there is the relaxed easy-going peacemaker who appears to be everybody’s friend but, in reality, they know the heart-felt ideals of all the team sitting around the table.

Effective managers understand that it takes a good blend of people to work together and will select team members with diverse backgrounds and experiences. The leaders job is to channel each members skills and energy towards the common shared goals of the business. A solid blend of different personalities is what makes any kind of team enterprise exciting, challenging and fun.

For this reason, it is important when selecting new members for your team that you strive to get a blend of personality types, rather than people who are just like yourself. That is not to say that a group of people with the same personalities will not achieve results, but they may not consider a whole range of useful options that someone with a different personality might suggest.

The main reason to seek out various personalities for your group is that you will have different perspectives brought forward and you will be able to view potential outcomes from different angles. As you and your team become more aware of the natural skillsets of certain personality types, there will be less conflict and a much better understanding of where everyone is coming from.

Ultimately you will become the leader of a highly effective team.