Fortunately for me and everyone who attended this year's ILTACON, the event featured several top-notch sessions on leadership. Though each session I attended was thought-provoking, "Leadership Through the Colored Looking Glass" stood out for its practical lessons. Through interactive exercises, Brianna (Brie) Leung of Red Bird Strategy taught the audience to assess their own communication and leadership style, understand the tendencies of others on their teams, identify effective approaches to motivating and collaborating with team members given those tendencies and how to quickly recognize and navigate various stressors that can keep teams from optimal performance.
Before exploring team dynamics, each audience member took a survey to assess their individual communication style. Once completed, a simple scoring system allowed the audience to plot their composite score on a four-quadrant graph. Each quadrant was associated with a color - green, red, yellow or blue - and each color represented a different approach to communication and leadership that became thematic for the rest of the presentation.
Green personalities tended to be very analytical and detail-oriented. They are methodical thinkers, who often are slow to make decisions. New ideas can be threatening until they are thoroughly vetted and analyzed. In Leung's words, if building a computer, a green will build the computer well.
The red quadrant was for those who tend to be results-oriented and decisive, the "drivers". They are quick thinkers, who concentrate on the immediate task at-hand. With a focus on results and the bottom line, it can be difficult for reds to be patient and detailed. If building a computer, a red will build it fast.
Yellows are highly collaborative, valuing the ideas and opinions of everyone on the team. They are excellent at delegating responsibility, but can be challenged to make a quick decision and often will acquiesce to other, more forceful personalities. When building a computer, yellows will build it with others.
Finally, blue personalities are creative, big picture thinkers open to new ideas, but resistant to structure. They tend not to be detail-oriented and can wander off-task. That creativity and curiosity, however, can also lead to innovative solutions. If asked to build a computer, blues will build a time machine instead.
While it is rare for anyone to exhibit traits of only one color (a change in response to just one question would have switched my color from red to blue), understanding what color(s) tend to describe my style is helpful for me to appreciate how I might be perceived by others. Leung helped me identify strengths I bring to my team and negative characteristics that can manifest if not controlled. Armed with this information, I can consciously promote the virtues associated with my color while actively avoiding some of its pitfalls.
After learning a bit about each of the leadership and communication approaches, we took a few minutes to think about the mix of personalities on our work teams and the perceptions or misperceptions those teammates may have about our leadership styles. In my own example, I strongly suspect the team I work with has mostly blue and green personalities, with perhaps a yellow or two in the mix. I am almost assuredly the only red. As such, I likely play an important role in keeping people focused on upcoming deliverables and pushing tasks over the finish line, but must be careful not to be perceived as pushy, impatient or domineering and to resist the urge to become autocratic in stressful situations. Doing so could inhibit the creativity and reliability of the collaborative solutions the blues, greens and yellows on the team deliver for our clients. And, while it would probably be easiest for me to be on a team filled with red personalities, studies show the highest performing teams have all the colors represented.
Irrespective of leadership style, we learned that there are two things we can do to keep morale high and avoid stressors that negatively impact team performance. First, time and again, lack of honest communication has been identified as the thing that most negatively impacts employee morale. Unsurprisingly, better and more open communication is the best way to remedy the issue. Communication, however, is only part of the battle. How I communicate can be nearly as important as the message itself. Thus, following the Platinum Rule - doing unto others as they would have done unto themselves - is the second step to take to ensure the message is well-received. To follow the Platinum Rule effectively, it is crucial to consider my own personality color and the color mix of my team.
For me, as a red amongst greens, blues and yellows, this means taking the time to slow my pace and make sure I'm not coming on too strong. Specifically, when dealing with yellows, I need to ask for their view so they don't automatically acquiesce to mine. When speaking to blues, I need to make sure I recognize their creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, and with greens I need to be sure to listen more and talk less to allow them to organize their thoughts and work through their responses in a controlled and organized manner. For others on the team communicating with me, focusing on the big picture, highlighting things like goals and milestones while avoiding unnecessary detail is likely to improve the way I receive their message.
As the session concluded, Leung reminded us that the best teams incorporate all of the colors, embracing their complementary strengths. To maximize the chances of achieving high performance, she suggested five steps.
First, build your team's awareness of the diverse strengths the different colors provide. Have members take the survey to learn their color. Second, educate them on the colors, their relative strengths and potential pitfalls to then, third, provide a common vocabulary for the team to use. For example, it might be a good idea to hold a "blue session" when brainstorming solutions to a difficult problem or a "red touch-base meeting" when reporting high-level progress towards an impending deadline. Sharing a common vocabulary helps to signal tone, keeping the meeting focused and productive. Fourth, color coding your space, or otherwise reminding others of your personality type, can help them better communicate with you. Finally, reiterating and reinforcing the simple color coding scheme keeps ingrained in teammates' minds the different personality types on the team and how they might best tap into their strengths.
For those unable to attend the session, the slides and audio are available in the ILTA library. The survey can be found online or by purchasing the book People Styles at Work by Robert and Dorothy Bolton. For more detailed questions about the session or information about Leung’s team workshops, she can be reached at brie@redbirdstrategies.com.
ILTACON Session: "Leadership Through the Colored Looking Glass: How to Motivate and Elevate Your Team" and the PowerPoint Presentation.
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