The Secret to Unlocking Your Team’s Full Potential Through Personality Assessments

Understanding personality profiles can unlock your team's full potential by identifying hidden strengths and challenges. Leaders can use these assessments to enhance communication, foster adaptability, and guide individual growth. By leveraging these insights, teams become more cohesive, and leaders can tailor their approach to meet each member's unique needs.

The Secret to Unlocking Your Team’s Full Potential Through Personality Assessments

Understanding personality profiles can unlock your team’s full potential by identifying hidden strengths and challenges. Leaders can use these assessments to enhance communication, foster adaptability, and guide individual growth. By leveraging these insights, teams become more cohesive, and leaders can tailor their approach to meet each member’s unique needs.

We often see people in their best light—in interviews, when they’re onboarding, and as they settle into their roles. The challenge of getting to know a person is that we see them as they present themselves. But there’s another side to people, and we struggle to see it. Personality profiles give you another way to get to know someone.

Often, when people use personality profiles, they look at all the stuff they like and think, “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. Yep. This is the person I want.” But there’s always another side to the story. If you’re going to use personality profiles for building and sustaining a team, you’ve got to look at both sides.

The Power of Understanding Individual Personality Styles

Personality assessments reveal unexpected strengths and challenges within your team. For example, you might have a strategic team member who’s role is limiting their creativity, or maybe a team member who is systematic, or process oriented but is in a position of constant novelty. These insights are invaluable for placing people in roles where they can thrive and for providing targeted development opportunities.

Tips for Using Assessments Constructively

I recommend these strategies for using personality assessments to develop and motivate your team:

  1. Use them Frequently:

    Use personality profiles while interviewing, during performance reviews, and during change management. Use the profiles to connect with and understand your team members. The results can help you recognize their mindset, behaviours, strengths, and weaknesses.
  2. Avoid Labeling:

    One of the challenges of personality profiles is avoiding the tendency to label people. It’s crucial to avoid rigid labels like “red’s are always dominant leaders” or “green’s are always docile followers.” Such stereotypes miss the point and hold back your team. Any personality type can succeed in any role, including leadership positions. The profile tells us about how people are, and how they see the world, not what they are capable of.
  3. Highlight Adaptability:

    One of the highest compliments you can give someone is acknowledging their adaptability. Effective leaders are like chameleons, adapt as the situation demands. Use the personality assessment as a starting point to find ways that each person can contribute. Knowing a person better, you can help them grow on the team in a way that acknowledges their strengths and their goals.

 

Examples of Personality Insights Fostering Better Communication and Collaboration

I’ve had experience with this. I had a really good person who had a behaviour that was holding them back in their credibility as a leader. Sometimes their tone was received by others as harsh. That behavior was hard to talk about because I knew that they were really passionate about their work and I did not want that to diminish. They were really good, and I didn’t want to disconnect them with a hard conversation. So yeah—you could say I was avoiding it.

One day, I happened to be looking at this profile of the individual and it noted that occasionally their passion could be misinterpreted as being too harsh.. I thought, how do I bring this into a conversation without seeming too critical? Wouldn’t you know, the next day, I was walking down the hall and I overheard what sounded like someone yelling. It was the person passionately making their point. I thought, oh, that’s it. So, I called the individual into my office and said, “I was reading your profile and it had a comment about your passionate tone being misinterpreted as harshness. Now, I wouldn’t have thought that was even something to think about until yesterday. I overheard a conversation you were having in the hallway and I thought, wow, that’s not the tone of conversation that we really want. Would you agree?” We ended up having a long discussion about how to use our knowledge about adapting and connecting using personal styles to be more effective as leaders.

I’ve used the Insights Discovery system, based on Carl Jung’s theories, for over two decades. This system uses simple terminology and colours to describe personality traits, making it easy to understand and apply. For example, the colour red represents an extroverted, competitive, and goal-oriented individual. The simplicity of this system makes communication with your team easy and simple. It makes talking about personality both efficient and enjoyable.

Meeting people where they are and understanding who they are is fundamental. Effective coaching and leadership require adjusting your communication style to match the individual’s personality. This approach fosters better connections, enhances mutual understanding, and opens up avenues for constructive conversations.

Bringing It All Together

Understanding and leveraging the insights from personality profiles can transform leadership from autocratic to collaborative. By appreciating the each individual completely, leaders can drive their teams to greater heights. It’s about seeing people not just for their strengths, but for their potential to grow through their challenges.

We live in an era where collaboration is more important than ever. Personality assessments aren’t just tools—they’re  necessities for any leader who wants to build a cohesive, dynamic, and high-performing team.

Let’s dig deeper. Let’s connect more genuinely. Let’s lead with an understanding that goes beyond the surface. By doing so, we don’t just build better teams—we create a culture where everyone can truly thrive.

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