A fallacy that many leaders buy into is that to be fair and equitable to the people who are part of my team, I need to treat each of them exactly the same. It’s understandable…most of us have heard some form of that most of our lives. I would beg to differ. As an OOH leader, you need to be able to manage each of your people differently while giving the ILLUSION of treating them the same. I don’t mean they have different policies or rules for each. Of course, we need to be consistent across all employees in those areas.
Frankly, we must keep in mind that your team is made up of unique individuals. They are not all the same person with the same experience, same ability, same priorities, etc. This requires understanding the unique strengths, weaknesses, and communication styles of each team member and tailoring your leadership approach accordingly.
As a leader your job is to put your people in the best possible position to bring the greatest value to the team as they are individually capable of. They will each need different things from you in order to perform at their highest level. The OOH Sales Mastery principles and behavioral/communication style strategies can be valuable tools for developing this kind of adaptive leadership style. Here are a just a few key strategies for managing each of your people differently while maintaining a consistent leadership approach.
You must learn to understand your people’s hard-wired difference from other teammates. In doing so it will help you understand their distinctive communication styles, preferences, and tendencies. This can be a valuable tool for tailoring your leadership approach to each individual, based on their unique strengths and weaknesses.
For example, a team member with a dominant style may respond well to direct, results-oriented feedback about what you believe they do well and what they need to improve upon that will drive greater results and rewards for that individual.
A team member with a more outgoing, never meet a stranger behavioral style will respond best to friendly, upbeat, focus on the positive feedback. They really need to have a relationship and a lot of interaction with their boss. In that environment they can then be receptive to constructive criticism if it is wrapped up between the positives.
Another very distinctive style of teammate is one is very relational yet reserved. Mr. Rogers talked about his mother teaching him that in any crisis you should look for the “helpers”. The people who rush in and just want to help everyone do well. They don’t like the limelight much but really enjoy being supportive of clients, teammates, the organization. They will respond best to a very collaborative approach to feedback.
Lastly, we do have that person on the team that is all about the details and perfection. They are fairly reserved and really put a strong focus on getting the job done…no chit chat here! They take their sense of accomplishment from being challenged to tackle the most comprehensive, thorny of tasks that require precision and perfection. Be careful with feedback with this style of teammate…their self-worth is wrapped up in the quality and the value of their work. Criticism of their work, if not done properly, will cause them to shut down and “dig in” on their position.
Need help with sales skills or coaching to take your out of home company to the next level. Learn more about OOH Sales Mastery at oohmastery.com or Contact Dan Nausley at dan.nausley@sandler.com, 423.702.5579.
Lisa & Dan Nausley of Sandler Chattanooga have developed the OOH Sales Mastery Program after more than a decade of training/coaching scores of OOH Operators across the country in sales, leadership, and executive coaching.
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